ECM Weekly (30 August 2020) - Ant Group, Kioxia, Yum China, Blue Moon, Softbank Corp Secondary

It's another busy week in the land of IPOs and Placements. First and foremost, the talk of the town is the filing of Ant Group (1051260D CH)'s prospectus, bringing the fintech giant closer to its IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Ke Yan, CFA, FRM shared his thoughts on the company and financials in this two notes:

• Ant Group (蚂蚁集团) IPO First-Take: No. 1 Fintech from All Angles
• Ant Group (蚂蚁集团) IPO: Numbers Suggest It's More Tech than Financials

We also continue our coverage of other upcoming Hong Kong and other IPOs (Philippines).

• Blue Moon Group Pre-IPO - Online Reviews and Peer Comparison
• Excellence Commercial Property (卓越商企服务) Pre-IPO - Diversifying Away from Excellence Group
• Converge ICT Pre-IPO - Fast Growth, Low Penetration, COVID Resistant

Aside from Ant Group's filing, in Hong Kong, we count four more filings that will likely raise more than US$100m this week. This includes Yum China's filing on Friday (under PHIP) that is indicating a deal size (based on max price) of about US$2.5bn. Two other filings are biotech companies while the remaining is a healthcare tech business.

Not to forget, Nongfu Spring (9633 HK)'s bookbuild which closed one day earlier, on Thursday as books were well oversubscribed according to reports.

• Nongfu Spring IPO - Not Cheap by Any Measure but Is a Quality Name

There was also a flurry of IPO filings across Asia Pacific. In India, we finally get a new filing after Gland Pharma's July filing. Kalyan Jewellers is looking to raise about US$250m, targeting a listing next quarter.

In Thailand, Kerry Express finally confirms its US$100 -300m IPO plans and it is targeting to launch in Q4 2020.

Last but not least, in Japan, Kioxia, a unit of Toshiba formerly known as Toshiba Memory Corporation filed to list in October with a deal size of about US$3.6bn. We shared some of our preliminary thoughts in:

• Kioxia IPO Early Thought: Inventor of the NAND Flash

There were a handful of large placements too. In particular, on Friday, we got news of NIO Inc (NIO US)'s opportunistic US$1.5bn follow-on offering which was almost as big as Xpeng Motors (XPEV US)'s IPO amount. Then after Japan close, Softbank Group announced its bigger than expected (US$11-14bn) selldown of Softbank Corp (9434 JP). Our analysis and thoughts are shared in the notes below:

• Asahi Group Placement - Finally, It's Time to Lift the Overhang! Trade Ideas from past Large Deals
• Hindustan Aeronautics Placement - Running a Little Too High on Defence Spending and Make in India
• 21Vianet Placement: Data Center as Scarce Resource
• NIO (蔚来) Placement - Buying Itself Out of NIO China
• Softbank Corp Placement - Overhang Removed but Raising More than Initially Planned