Chinese memory giant CXMT oversubscribed 212 times in mega Shanghai IPO
Nearly 10 million investor accounts apply for a rare listed proxy on Beijing’s semiconductor self-reliance drive
Investors submitted valid applications for nearly 817 billion shares on Thursday, according to an official announcement published Thursday night. The response highlights the intense appetite for China’s leading producer of dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM, as investors seek exposure to Beijing’s effort to build domestic alternatives to foreign chip suppliers.
The overwhelming demand for the Shanghai listing triggered a clawback mechanism that shifted about 502 million shares from the institutional tranche to retail investors. Even after the online offering was expanded to about 3.85 billion shares, the final allotment rate was only 0.47 per cent.
China’s online IPO system does not require investors to provide cash when submitting applications. Instead, applicants receive lottery entries based on the value of their existing Shanghai-listed shareholdings; they pay only if they win allocations. Each successful entry for CXMT entitles an investor to buy 500 shares for 4,330 yuan (US$637).