China’s second-largest e-commerce firm, JD.com, could take its logistics business public and it may consider a dual listing, the company’s chief said this week.
Speaking to CNBC in Davos, Switzerland at the annual World Economic Forum meeting, JD Founder and CEO Richard Liu said considerations were being made for the subsidiary business to potentially list in Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland.
“First of all, we didn’t decide which country we should list,” Liu said. Because JD’s main company is listed on the Nasdaq, he indicated that a dual listing could potentially occur in either Hong Kong or mainland China.
Dual listing refers to when a company puts its shares on multiple stock exchanges. It gives investors more flexibility and makes the stock more liquid.
JD.com listed American depository shares in its group company on the Nasdaq in 2014.
JD.com has kicked off a fundraising round at its logistics business with a target of at least $2 billion, Reuters reported this month, citing people familiar with the matter. The news wire said that Chinese investment firm Hillhouse Capital Group and Sequoia Capital China would likely be lead investors in the round.
There were plans to take the business public in an overseas market, according to Reuters, which added that it wasn’t clear when and where the initial public offering process would happen. Currently, JD.com fully owns the logistics business.
When CNBC asked if Liu could offer a hint about whether the logistics unit could go public this year, he answered: “Yes, maybe, but not today.”
Last year, JD.com spun off its finance arm for more than $2 billion, and Liu acquired a 4.3 percent stake in the company.
In September, Liu told CNBC’s “Managing Asia” that one of the reasons that business was spun off was because of a desire to expand further into the payments business — the move was similar to how JD.com’s rival Alibaba spun off its payments arm Ant Financial. He also acknowledged then that the move could pave the way for a future public listing for JD Finance, but added that there was no rush to do so immediately.
— CNBC’s Ming Cheang contributed to this report.
