Up 489% Year-over-Year! Hong Kong Stock Market IPO Financing Nearly HKD 110 Billion in Q1

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In the first quarter of 2026, the pace of HKEx IPO financing has not slowed down.

The speed of submitting IPO filings is even more so: in the first quarter alone, there were 192 IPO applications added for the Main Board and GEM of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. This hot trend continues to run. As most recently disclosed on April 2, on a single day, 14 companies submitted HK IPO applications simultaneously and updated their prospectuses.

Among them, PRC securities firms still hold an edge in the underwriting business. In the first quarter, the top three HK IPO sponsors by number were CICC Hong Kong, CITIC Securities (Hong Kong), and Huatai Financial Holdings (Hong Kong). International investment banks such as UBS and Morgan Stanley followed closely behind.

The rankings of the top three banks by number of sponsors remain stable

In the first quarter of 2026, a total of 40 companies were listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with IPO fund-raising amount approaching HK$110 billion, up 489% year over year.

In terms of the number of sponsored deals, the ranking of the top three banks by number of sponsors remains stable, continuing the seating arrangement from 2025.

Specifically, CICC Hong Kong continued to lead with 15 deals sponsored for IPOs, ranking first; CITIC Securities (CITIC Hong Kong, combining CITIC and CITIC Lyon for calculation) and Huatai Financial Holdings (Hong Kong) sponsored 7 deals each, tying for second; UBS, Morgan Stanley, Guotai Junan, and CMB International Securities (Hong Kong) sponsored 4 deals each, tying for third.

In 2025, CICC Hong Kong, CITIC Securities (Hong Kong), and Huatai Financial Holdings (Hong Kong) sponsored 42, 33, and 22 Hong Kong IPO deals respectively, ranking among the top three, with cumulative market share reaching 37%.

By funding amount per individual project, multiple IPO companies raised more than HK$5 billion, including Muyuan Foods, Dongpeng Beverage, Zhipu, Haowei Shares, Birun Technology, and Lianqi Technology, among others. IPOs raising more than HK$10 billion are mainly industry-leading companies in A+H share sectors. In terms of industry distribution, among newly added IPO-listed companies, companies in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and biotech account for the majority.

From the perspective of audit-firm rankings, the concentration of market share among leading companies is even higher than that of sponsors. According to Wind statistics, the top spot goes to Ernst & Young Hua Ming with 18 deals; next is KPMG with 9 deals; Hong Kong Deloitte Guancheng Chen Fang Accounting Firm has 5 deals. The top three firms together account for 80% of the market share.

In terms of law-firm distribution, concentration is slightly more dispersed. The top three law firms are Beijing Tongshang Law Firm, Wuyitong, and Beijing Jingtian Gongcheng Law Firm. The number of signed Hong Kong IPO deals for each is 15, 14, and 12 respectively.

HKEx IPO reform and continued high enthusiasm

HKEx has strengthened regulation on the quality of filing documents for IPO submissions, but since 2026, the pace and heat of new-share filings, reviews, and listings have still remained sustained. Recently, HKEx has also planned further reforms to the new share issuance system. It is expected that this year’s HK IPO fund-raising amount will likely exceed last year and will change the composition of listed companies on HKEx.

Since the 2018 IPO reform of Hong Kong allowed the listing of biotech companies with dual-class shares and loss-making conditions, the structure of Hong Kong listed companies has been fundamentally reshaped, and a large number of tech-specialized and biotech enterprises have gone to list in Hong Kong.

On March 15, HKEx proposed yet another reform of the listing regime. It plans to lower market value and financial thresholds for dual-class shares companies. The maximum ratio of different voting rights can be up to 20:1. It will optimize the rules for secondary listings to facilitate overseas issuers to list in Hong Kong. It will allow all new companies planning to IPO to submit confidential filings, while also strengthening the return mechanism—returned incomplete materials will have details of intermediaries such as sponsors, law firms, and accounting firms made public. (See the report by Securities Times China: “HKEx will usher in ‘new listing rules,’ dual-class share ratios up to 20:1, full liberalization of confidential filing”)

In the first quarter this year, HKEx added 192 IPO applications for the Main Board and GEM. As of the end of the first quarter, HKEx had 413 IPO companies under review, with another 99 paused for review due to expired financial reports. Combined with unprocessed filing applications from last year, the total number of IPO applications reached 568.

Editors: Luo Xiaoxia

Layout: Liu Junyu

Proofreading: Gao Yuan

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