China’s Zeekr Intelligent, a premium electric car company that made its papers available for a stock market offering in New York, disclosed larger losses for the first six months of the fiscal year on Thursday afternoon and issued a warning that Beijing might have an impact on its operations.
Zeekr, a subsidiary of Geely Auto (0175.HK), a Chinese manufacturer, filed in confidence for an IPO in December of last year.
“The Chinese government exercises significant power over the way we operate of our companies and could get involved with or impact the way we operate as the government considers suitable to further regulating, political & societal goals,” the prospectus for Zeekr stated.
The document validates a story published by Reuters on the previous Thursday, stating that Zeekr intended to release its initial public offering (IPO) prospectus this week.
Although Reuters earlier reported that the company aimed to raise above $1 billion, one of its sources indicated that it is unlikely to surpass the billion dollar threshold.
Following the controversial delisting of ride-hailing behemoth Didi Worldwide from the stock exchange in New York, the listing may represent the first significant float in the United States by a Chinese company in the last two years.
Didi’s 4.4 billion dollar New York offering went through despite requests to halt it, which infuriated Chinese regulators.
Chinese companies’ pursuit of U.S. listings was impeded by the incident and an audit disagreement that arose between both China and the United States.
After the U.S. calculating watchdog and China resolved a long-running audit disagreement in December 2022, Beijing softened its stance toward companies seeking to list internationally and unveiled a set of rules that were intended to revive such listings. The business reported a net loss of 3.87 a billion dollars Chinese yuan ($531.34 million) for the six-month period ended June 30, compared to 3.09 billion Chinese yuan a year prior earlier. It will list the shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol “ZK”. Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley, among others, are the lead insurers for the IPO.
