The automaker Zeeker, which is considered a Chinese competitor to Tesla, launched an initial public offering of its shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Friday. It was supposed to last until Thursday, May 9, 2024, but according to recent reports, the deadline has been pushed back and will end a day earlier, on Wednesday. The shares will then begin trading on the exchange on Friday under the symbol “ZK”.
The company is selling 17.5 million American Depositary Shares (ADSs) (each such share is equivalent to 10 common shares) at prices between $18 and $21 apiece. In total, it intends to raise up to USD 367 million. This also means that ZEEKR plans to raise a market capitalisation of USD 5.13 billion through the IPO. By comparison, some of ZEEKR’s competitors are already trading on the New York Stock Exchange, including NIO (NIO), XPeng Motors (XPEV) and Li Auto (LI), and their market capitalizations were $11.6 billion, $8.55 billion and $29.7 billion, respectively, at the close of the market on Friday. Despite Zeeker’s lower valuation, this will be the largest offering by a Chinese company in the U.S. since 2021.
The decision to prematurely terminate Zeeker’s IPO may have been due to the fact that demand had already far exceeded supply. However, this information comes from an anonymous source and has not been officially confirmed by the company. However, what we do know from Zeekr is that three companies had expressed interest in subscribing to the ADSs on offer, worth up to USD 349 million, before the official launch of the IPO. These include Geely Auto, which owns Zeekr, electric vehicle battery maker CATL, and Israeli self-driving technology company Mobileye. It would therefore surprise no one if the remaining less than 20 million shares are subscribed very quickly.
