Daily Brief China: Atour Lifestyle Holdings, China Merchants China Direct Investments, Sciclone Pharmaceuticals, New Gonow Recreational Vehicles, Meituan and more

• Legend Capital (LC), one of the principal shareholders of Atour Lifestyle Holdings (ATAT US), is looking to raise around US$168m through a secondary selldown.
• This will be the third selldown by Legend Capital in just over a year’s time. Hence, the deal is well flagged.
• In this note, we will talk about the placement and run the deal through our ECM framework.

• Activist Argyle Street’s approach to closed-end investment company China Merchants China Direct Investments (133 HK) (CMCDI) has a certain David Webb-like quality.
• Apart from the deep value angle, the analysis of director Elizabeth Kan’s potential conflict of interest is particularly insightful. Argle will vote against Kan’s re-election at the 20th June AGM
• Given this upcoming vote, as I’ve done with Giordano (709 HK) and L’Occitane (973 HK) previously, it’s useful to investigate the lesser-known shareholder register, a byproduct of investigative disclosure reports.

• Some shareholders have confirmed to be acting in concert at the Court Meeting, but long-term investors may vote against the privatization because they are not satisfied with the Cancellation Price.
• The success rate of SciClone’s privatization is lower than that of China TCM and L’Occitane. If fails, there’s a high probability that the share price will fall back to HK$14/share.
• The current share price cannot provide decent returns. Together with exchange rate risk, potential failure risks, etc., there’s no need for investors to take risks at this share price level.

• New Gonow Recreational Vehicles (NGRV HK) is looking to raise US$100m in its upcoming Hong Kong IPO. The bookrunner on the deal is Huatai International.
• New Gonow Recreational Vehicles (NGRV) is a recreational vehicle (RV) platform with an extensive presence in Australasia that designs, develops, manufactures and sells bespoke towable RVs.
• According to Frost & Sullivan (F&S), the firm held the second-largest market share in Australasia’s RV industry in terms of 2023 sales volume.

Lucror Analytics Morning Views comprise our fundamental credit analysis, opinions and trade recommendations on high yield issuers in the region, based on key company-specific developments in the past 24 hours. Our Morning Views include a section with a brief market commentary, key market indicators and a macroeconomic and corporate event calendar.

• Meituan