By Scott Murdoch and Yantoultra Ngui
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Chinese self-driving firm iMotion Automotive Technology is aiming to raise $100 million in its Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) due to launch in the last week of November, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
The firm was one of the first to receive approval from China’s securities regulator to carry out an overseas share sale since new rules came into place in March, Reuters reported in June.
iMotion, which was established in 2016, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
The Suzhou-based firm is planning to open the books for its IPO the week after next ahead of starting trade on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) in the first week of December, according to the sources.
The sources could not be named as the information had not yet been made public.
The firm’s plans could change, they cautioned, with global financial markets remaining volatile as a result of persistently high inflation and elevated world interest rates.
iMotion had planned to raise $300 million, Bloomberg News reported in March, but has cut the size of its new fund raising target.
China will back firms in the smart vehicle supply chain to form groups dedicated to increasing innovation, state media reported in early October, as it races to hammer out standards for assisted and autonomous driving functions by 2025.
China is considered the world’s largest auto market.
The deal will round out one of Hong Kong’s worst years recently for IPOs, with new share sales down 32.5% in the first three quarters of 2023, according to LSEG data.
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney and Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
