Kuaishou Technology Prices Blockbuster IPO

Retail investors in Hong Kong are giving r/WallStreetBets a run for its money.

Kuaishou Technology, a video sharing mobile app that competes with TikTok, has completed the largest global IPO in over a year.

The Grey Zone

Tencent-backed Kuaishou was founded in 2011 and tallies roughly 250 million daily active users.

The numbers:

• Local retail investors placed a total of 1.4 million applications to buy shares, making the deal 1,200 times oversubscribed.
• Said another way, one out of every five people in the city subscribed to buy shares, and it was the most popular Hong Hong IPO in history (for its size bracket).

Retail investor appetites have been both figuratively and literally insatiable. Shares of Nongfu Spring, China’s largest bottled water company, have tripled in value since their September IPO. The run has made Zhong Shanshan China’s richest man with an $89 billion fortune.

The Takeaway:

Another reason for Kuaishou demand? TikTok parent company ByteDance isn’t public yet.