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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