Muyuan Foods Co. plans to partner with Asian pig farmers and enhance its global feed-grain supply network after raising HK$10.7 billion ($1.4 billion) in Hong Kong’s biggest listing of the year so far.
China’s largest hog breeder is looking to expand in Southeast Asia over the next three to five years, its chief financial officer said, in a move that will bolster regional biosecurity and help the company to diversify beyond an oversupplied domestic market.
Muyuan also aims to build procurement teams in major grain- and oilseed-exporting nations like Brazil to ensure a steady supply of feed ingredients, Gao Tong told Bloomberg News in an interview. “We hope to improve our globalized supply chain through this Hong Kong listing,” the 31-year-old CFO said.
The IPO market in Hong Kong has had a busy start to the year, with maiden share sales fetching about $5 billion last month alone — the highest total for any January on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Muyuan’s shares rose as much as 5.1% in their Hong Kong trading debut Friday, after pricing the deal at HK$39 per share, the top end of its range. The move came against the backrdrop of broadly negative market sentiment as the Hang Seng Index traded in the red. Muyuan’s mainland-listed stock has fallen about 8% this year, lagging behind the benchmark CSI 300 Index.
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