HK dropped as Didi rides away to US for IPO

China's ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing has dropped its Hong Kong initial public offering plan and aims to go public in New York as soon as the third quarter, mainland media reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Beijing-based company has filed confidentially with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for an IPO, Bloomberg reported in April. Didi was considering a second listing in Hong Kong after the IPO in the US, the report said.

Didi, backed by SoftBank, Alibaba (9988) and Tencent (0700), is looking to list as soon as July, eyeing a valuation of at least US$100 billion (HK$780 billion), Reuters reported earlier. The New York listing plan partly reflects concerns that a Hong Kong IPO application could run into tighter regulatory scrutiny over its business practices, including the use of unlicensed vehicles and part-time drivers, the report said.

Meanwhile, two companies kicked off Hong Kong IPO plans yesterday and were set to debut on June 18.

CARsgen Therapeutics, a mainland pre-profit biopharmaceutical company, has attracted nearly HK$35 billion in retail orders through margin financing, data from 14 brokers showed. That means the retail portion was oversubscribed by at least 110 times.

The Shanghai-based firm is seeking to raise as much as HK$3.11 billion, with a minimum investment of HK$16,565.

China Youran Dairy, backed by dairy giant Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial, is aiming to raise up to HK$6.19 billion through a Hong Kong share sale. The minimum investment reached HK$8,747.

Retail investors have placed about HK$1.4 billion in orders by margin loans to bid for China Youran's new shares, 1.2 times more than that initially available for them. To avoid multiple applications, China Youran and its joint sponsors have asked brokers to provide investors' full names and Hong Kong ID numbers and reject orders from mainland and US residents.

Angelalign Technology, a mainland maker of invisible dental braces, closed its institutional investors order book one day earlier than planned, IFR Asia reported. Retail investors poured in at least HK$242.5 billion through margin financing, making it retail tranche more than 832 times oversubscribed.

In other news, Julia Leung Fung-yee, executive director and the deputy chief executive of the Securities and Futures Commission, yesterday warned of an increasing number of scams and frauds involving new listings in the past two years.