Chinas Geely Auto Looks To List On Shanghais STAR Market

Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd has applied for a public share sale on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style STAR Market, exchange filings published on Tuesday showed.

China’s highest-profile automaker, thanks to parent group investments in Daimler AG and Volvo Cars, plans to use the proceeds to fund investment worth around 20 billion yuan ($2.93 billion) in new car models and technologies, it said in the filing.

The Hangzhou-based automaker, controlled by its billionaire chairman Li Shufu, posted a January-June net profit of 2.3 billion yuan.

Sales were down 19% to 530,446 vehicles, with revenue down 23% at 36.82 billion yuan.

Under merger talks that were suspended in July, its parent group had planned to merge the automaker with affiliate Volvo Cars and list the successor in Hong Kong and possibly Stockholm.

Geely’s Hong Kong-listed shares trade at 22 times trailing earnings, compared with STAR Market’s average earnings multiples of 96.

Its Shanghai listing plan could boost its Hong Kong-traded shares. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp’s (SMIC) SS Hong Kong-listed shares more than doubled in the six months ahead of its Shanghai listing on July 16.