[NEW YORK] Chagee Holdings, a Chinese bubble tea chain, is seeking to raise US$411 million in an initial public offering (IPO) in the US, despite spiking stock volatility from US President Donald Trump’s tariff measures.
The Shanghai-based company is offering 14.68 million American depositary shares for US$26 to US$28 each, according to a filing on Thursday (Apr 10) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. At the top of the price range, Chagee would have a market value of about US$3.3 billion based on the outstanding shares listed in the filing.
Funds affiliated with CDH Investment Management, RWC Asset Management and RWC Asset Advisors (US), Allianz Global Investors Asia-Pacific and ORIX Asia Asset Management indicated interest in buying as much as US$205 million worth of ADS in aggregate at the IPO price, the filing shows.
The launch comes as a number of firms have paused planned US listings amid the market turmoil, Bloomberg News has reported. Notable examples include ticket platform StubHub Holdings, fintech giant Klarna Group and trading platform eToro Group.
Some smaller deals are moving ahead. Along with Chagee, Airo Group Holdings also launched an IPO on Thursday. The aerospace and defence technology firm is seeking to raise as much as US$80 million.
Chagee is proceeding with an IPO amid an escalating trade war between the US and China, with both sides imposing steep levies on each others’ goods. The company cited geopolitical tensions and tariffs among its risk factors in the filing, signalling that all of its products are made in China and shipped overseas.
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The bubble tea firm also acknowledged that further escalation could discourage investments in securities issued by China-based companies and that “it has been reported that the US administration may consider imposing further restrictions or prohibitions on trading of Chinese securities”.
An IPO would follow Chagee’s domestic peer Mixue Group, which went public in Hong Kong in March in the city-state’s biggest IPO this year. Mixue’s offering attracted enormous demand from mom-and-pop investors keen to capitalise on the vogue for drinks such as bubble tea, a market that’s forecast to surge to US$71 billion in three years.
Chagee’s network comprised 6,440 tea houses as at December 2024, with the number growing approximately 83 per cent year over year, the filing shows. Founder and chief executive officer Junjie Zhang, who started the company in 2017, is set to have 89 per cent of the aggregate voting power after the offering, according to the filing.
Chagee’s IPO is being led by Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and China International Capital, the filing shows. The shares are expected to trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol CHA. BLOOMBERG
