Xiaomi to issue CDR and become the first dual-listing Chinese unicorn soon

China’s Xiaomi could set a far-reaching precedent for overseas-listed Chinese tech behemoths – the likes of Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent – as the company rumoredly is adding a separated A-share listing to its HK floatation, making it the precursor of an upcoming dual-listing tide driven by Beijing’s effort to bring back home some of its homegrown tech darlings.

A Bloomberg report stated earlier that Xiaomi has tapped Chinese broker Citic Securities for CDR issuance, added that the CDR would happen after Xiaomi’s Hong Kong IPO.

The latest development, according to a local self-media citing people from China Securities Regulatory Commission and investment banks who are familiar with the matter, is that Xiaomi, in an aim to meet its CDR issuance schedule, is putting off the original IPO plan.

The new arrangement is, Xiaomi will price its CDR and Hong Kong IPO on July 9, then issue CDR on July 16 on the Shanghai bourse and July 17 Hong Kong IPO.

LEI Jun, Xiaomi founder and CEO, voiced support for the CDR policy earlier this year. “This (CDR) is an excellent idea and a great policy innovation,” said LEI to media in April.

To put it simply, CDR is the Chinese version of American depositary receipts. A deposit receipt is a financial instrument that represents a foreign company’s publicly traded securities, sold in domestic currency and on local exchanges. Many Chinese tech companies, including Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com, have chosen to list overseas as they adopt variable interest entities structure or a dual-class share structure, which are not accepted by mainland China’s stock exchanges.

On March 30, China’s State Council unveiled a CDR trial which applies to companies that have floated on the overseas stock market with a valuation of over RMB 200 billion (approx. US$ 32 billion).

For Xiaomi, bringing its shares into the home market will give domestic investors access to its stocks. This move may also boost Xiaomi market valuation as local consumers and investors know better about its products and businesses, hence, supposedly, more inclined to buy in the company’s vision and value.

More importantly, Xiaomi may lead a batch of Chinese tech giants to relist on domestic exchanges. The first batch of companies to relist in China was rumored to include Xiaomi, Alibaba, Baidu, JD.com, and NetEase. All these companies have expressed their wish to relist at home.

Editor: Ben Jiang