https://www.ft.com/content/c30cf911-51da-4b40-a969-161351de6f04
Chinese ride-hailing group Didi Chuxing said it would delist from the New York Stock Exchange, accelerating China’s decoupling from US capital markets as Beijing cracks down on the country’s leading technology groups.
The company, which has been hit by increased regulatory scrutiny in China, wrote on its official Weibo account on Friday that it would begin the process of delisting and prepare to go public in Hong Kong.
Didi said in a separate statement its board had authorised the delisting in New York of its American depositary shares “while ensuring that ADSs will be convertible into freely tradable shares of the Company on another internationally recognised stock exchange”.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Tech index fell as much as 2.7 per cent on Friday following the news. Ecommerce group Alibaba dropped as much as 5.4 per cent and internet group Tencent lost as much as 3.3 per cent.
Didi launched its $4.4bn New York initial public offering in June, making it the biggest listing by a Chinese company in the US since Alibaba in 2014. Days later, Chinese regulators ordered Didi’s app to be taken off domestic app stores. The company was also banned from signing up new users and subjected to a wide-ranging government investigation into its cyber security practices.
The group’s shares have tumbled from the June IPO price of $14 to $7.80 at the New York close on Thursday. They initially rose in pre-market trading on Friday, but later gave up those gains.
While big Chinese state-owned enterprises listed in the US have been targeted by the Biden and Trump administrations with investment bans, New York remained an attractive destination for China’s private-sector tech champions.
In the immediate aftermath of Didi’s IPO, Chinese regulators signalled that other companies hoping to follow in its wake would be subject to more stringent approval procedures, especially if they managed data deemed sensitive by Beijing.
Submitted December 03, 2021 at 08:38AM by long218 https://ift.tt/3xOsrqa
