JD Logistics Seeks Up to $3.4 Billion in Hong Kong IPO

John Cheng, Bloomberg News

An employee loads packages into a delivery robot at a logistic center during a media tour of JD.com Inc.'s autonomous delivery vehicles in Changshu, Jiangsu province, China, on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. JD.com's vast logistics network is set to continue attracting international and domestic brands wanting to deepen their penetration of the Chinese market. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- JD Logistics Inc., the delivery arm of e-commerce giant JD.com Inc., is seeking to raise as much as HK$26.4 billion ($3.4 billion) in its Hong Kong initial public offering, seizing on China’s online shopping boom sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

The warehousing and shipping company is selling 609.2 million shares at HK$39.36 to HK$43.36 each, according to statement published in South China Morning Post. The company will start taking investor orders from Monday and is set to begin trading on May 28 in Hong Kong.

At $3.4 billion, JD Logistics would be the second-largest IPO in the city this year, after Kuaishou Technology’s $6.2 billion listing in February. Hong Kong has seen two other blockbuster JD.com-related offerings in the past 12 months, including online health-care unit JD Health International Inc.’s $4 billion IPO in December, as well as its own second listing in June, which raised $4.6 billion.

JD Logistics’ first-time share sale comes as Hong Kong’s market shrugs off concerns over inflation. The city has hosted $20.5 billion worth of IPOs so far this year, nearly seven times the $3 billion raised in the same period in 2020, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Created in 2007 and set up as a standalone unit under JD.com a decade later, JD Logistics’ networks include both so-called last mile and longer distance lines, as well as cold chain and bulky item networks, according to its prospectus. It operated more than 900 warehouses across China as of the end of 2020.

The logistics firm’s revenue climbed 47% in 2020 to 73.4 billion yuan, the prospectus shows. The company reported a net loss of 4.1 billion yuan last year, compared to 2.2 billion yuan in 2019. It plans to use the proceeds from the IPO to upgrade and expand its logistics networks, develop advanced technologies and to expand its customer base.

JD Logistics has attracted seven cornerstone investors to its offering, who agreed to subscribe for about $1.5 billion of stock, people with knowledge of the matter said last week. They include SoftBank Vision Fund, Temasek Holdings Pte, Blackstone Group Inc., Tiger Global, China Chengtong Holdings Group Ltd., Matthews Asia and Oaktree Capital.

BofA Securities Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Haitong International Securities Group Ltd. are joint sponsors for the listing.