Chinese Luxury Maternity and Baby Care Group Saint Bella Surges 23% in Hong Kong Grey Market Trading

Chinese luxury maternity and baby care group Saint Bella surged 23% in Hong Kong grey market trading.

Saint Bella is set to list tomorrow (26th). Market sources said that the Hong Kong public offering portion of Saint Bella was oversubscribed by approximately 180 times, while the international placement portion was oversubscribed by over 15 times.

The IPO attracted participation from domestic and international long-term funds, healthcare funds, Chinese public offered funds and hedge funds, etc..

Saint Bella introduced 7 cornerstone investors in this IPO, including GIMM, an investment company held by 58.com, JKKB and others. Furthermore, Tencent, China Life, Sun Hung Kai and Swire Properties were among its pre-IPO investors.

Saint Bella was founded in 2017 by Xiang Hua, a child of the 1980s. He received an engineering degree from Oxford University, only to ditch his field by joining the investment banking department of UBS on graduation, focusing on the healthcare sector. In 2016, he founded PrimeCare International, Saint Bella’s parent.

Saint Bella’s prospectus shows its revenue is growing strongly, even as its losses balloon. The company’s revenue more than doubled from 259 million yuan in 2021 to 560 million yuan in 2023, as its loss jumped from 119 million yuan in 2021 to 407 million yuan the next year, only to ease to 239 million yuan in 2023. Last year its revenue rose another 32% to 358 million yuan in the first half of 2024, while its loss ballooned sixfold to 480 million yuan.

The company ascribed the losses primarily to negative fair value changes in financial instruments issued to investors. Discounting those, its losses were much smaller at 29.9 million yuan in 2021 and 44.63 million yuan in 2022. And the company even logged profits of 20.77 yuan in 2023 and 17.15 million yuan in the first six months of last year.