HONG KONG—Legend Holdings Corp., the Chinese conglomerate that holds largest stake in Lenovo Group Ltd., rose in its debut Monday, indicating that investors remain optimistic about economic growth in China.

Shares in Legend Holdings opened up 0.4% at HK$43.15 Monday from their initial public offering price of HK$42.98, outperforming the benchmark Hang Seng Index, which traded down 1.71%. Legend shares traded early at HK$43.00.

Beijing-based Legend raised US$1.96 billion last week after it priced its IPO at the top end of the indicated price range. The deal marks the third-largest IPO in Hong Kong this year after a US$5 billion listing by China brokerage firm HTSC -- better-known as Huatai Securities -- in May, and a US$4.1 billion IPO by another securities firm, GF Securities Co., in March.

Legend is attractive to investors for its portfolio of "new China" businesses, well-suited to consumption-led growth. Apart from controlling Lenovo, the maker of personal computers that bought IBM's personal computer business a decade ago, Legend has interests in real estate and controls Hony Capital, a Chinese private-equity firm.

The firm was founded in 1984 by Liu Chuanzhi and 10 other researchers with funding of $30,000 from the Chinese Academy of Science, a government think tank.

Anjie Zheng contributed to this article.

Write to Yvonne Lee at yvonne.lee@wsj.com

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