Gas firm blows back into HK for US$1b IPO

Yingde Gases Group, a Chinese industrial gas manufacturer, is making a return to the Hong Kong stock market to raise about US$1 billion (HK$7.8 billion) from an initial public offering, sources told Bloomberg.

The group, owned by private equity firm Pacific Alliance Investment Group (PAG), is working with Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley on the listing. Yingde Gases could file for the listing as soon as next month, the sources said.

The gas group first went public in 2009 on Hong Kong's bourse after raising about HK$4.1 billion. It had attracted takeover interest from StellarS Capital Hong Kong and Air Products & Chemicals in 2016. PAG took the company private the next year in a US$2.6 billion deal.

The latest offering could include Baosteel Gases, another Chinese gas manufacturer that PAG acquired in 2019, said one of the people.

Meanwhile, local logistics unicorn GOGOX plans to file an IPO application in Hong Kong in the coming few weeks to raise between US$400 million and US$500 million, Reuters reported.

Formerly known as GoGoVan, the company merged with Chinese peer 58 Express in 2017 and now has more than 8 million registered drivers under the GOGOX network. It has been supported by well-known strategic and financial investors, such as Alibaba (9988) and Chinese online classifieds marketplace 58.com.

Separately, local food and lifestyle brand Day Day Cook announced that it signed a merger agreement with Ace Global Business Acquisition, a US-listed special purpose acquisition company, and will soon be listed on Nasdaq under a new ticker symbol.

Ace aims to raise about US$30 million to US$40 million through private equity investment in public equity. If there is no redemption by shareholders, the combined company will be valued at US$377 million, and receive US$46.9 million in cash from the Ace trust account.

China's cloud service provider Samoyed Cloud Technology, which is also invested in by PAG, submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on August 25.

Established in 2015, the company plans to raise US$500 million, Reuters reported earlier. It once applied to go public in the US in 2018 but withdrew in the following year due to the economic uncertainty stemming from the US-China trade war and intensified geopolitics back then.