Hozon New Energy Automobile Co., a company making affordable electric vehicles in China, is considering filing for its $1 billion Hong Kong initial public offering as soon as this month, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Shanghai-headquartered company has added ABC International Holdings Ltd. and China Merchants Bank International to the banks working on the listing, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public.
China International Capital Corp., Citic Securities Co., and Morgan Stanley are among the other banks on the first-time share sale, Bloomberg News reported last year.
Deliberations are ongoing and details such as the timing and bank lineup could still change, the people said. Representatives for Citic Securities, CICC, Hozon and Morgan Stanley declined to comment, while ABCI and CMBI didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
An IPO may come as the Chinese EV market is being roiled by a price war kicked off by Tesla Inc. in October, with both domestic and international rivals following suit. Steep discounts have failed to reverse a slide in sales for most manufacturers, and earnings have taken a hit.
Hozon sold 152,073 units of its Neta brand vehicles in 2022, up 118% versus the year before, according to a press release. The company is looking to build a presence in Europe and the Middle East as well as in Asia Pacific, where it inked a manufacturing agreement in May to make its Neta V model in Thailand.
The EV maker raised over 3 billion yuan ($423 million) in a series D funding round in 2022, according to its website. Shenzhen Capital Group and Qianhai Fund of Funds were among the participants in the round.
