Baidu eyes homecoming after Chinese New Year

Chinese search engine giant Baidu is planning to file for its Hong Kong secondary listing after the Lunar New Year, the latest "homecoming" listing of US-listed Chinese companies, mainland media reported, citing sources close to the deal.

The Nasdaq-listed has chosen CLSA and Goldman Sachs for its planned public sale, which could raise at least HK$27.3 billion, Bloomberg reported earlier.

Baidu could sell about 5 percent to 9 percent of its share capital and the estimated potential amount is based on its latest market value of almost US$70 billion (HK$546 billion).

In May last year, Baidu has reached out to trusted advisers when it was considering delisting from the United States and moving to an exchange closer to home to boost its valuation, Reuters reported. That came as tighter US scrutiny of Chinese companies listed in the country.

Last week, the US former President Trump's administration scrapped plans to blacklist Chinese tech giants Alibaba (9988), Tencent (0700) and Baidu.

Baidu has been seeking to catch up in the fields of online entertainment and electric cars.

Late last year, it agreed to buy Joyy's livestreaming business in China for about US$3.6 billion and its Netflix-style iQiyi competes with services run by Tencent and Alibaba.

Earlier this month, Baidu announced a plan to set up a joint company to partner with carmaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, Geely Automobile's (0175) parent, to make smart electric vehicles.

Meanwhile, Shanghai-based developer China SCE Group (1966) is mulling to spin off its property management arm to list in Hong Kong, with an aim to raising around US$300 million, IFR reported.

Separately, local brokers have reserved at least HK$145 billion in quotas for retail investors to subscribe new shares of Kuaishou Technology. The Chinese second-largest short-video company is said to kick off its Hong Kong IPO next week to raise about US$5 billion, targeting a valuation of more than US$60 billion.