金融时报常驻香港记者Hudson Lockett专栏：Didi IPO would give Hong Kong its dream comeback

HONG KONG, June 19 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Hong Kong needs a big initial public offering. The city’s benchmark Hang Seng Index (.HSI), opens new tab is up 6.4% this year and some decently sized convertible bond, opens new tab deals are starting to appear. A sizeable float could provide momentum to get the stock market closer to its 2021 all-time high; currently it is more than 40% below that mark. Didi Global is the obvious candidate.

The Chinese ride-hailing firm, according to The Information has been meeting with U.S. investors, opens new tab and may be eyeing a Hong Kong listing as early as next year. IPOs in the city have raised $1.5 billion so far this year, according to Dealogic, and financiers agree a single deal of at least $1 billion is needed to restore the flow. One banker likened the challenge to pushing a boulder: “If it’s already rolling, you’re fine, but if the boulder stops it takes a ton of energy to get it moving again.”

Didi first listed in 2021 in New York, where its $4.4 billion share sale valued the company at $73 billion. That deal pushed through despite Beijing's data security concerns, and Didi delisted one year later as a regulatory firestorm burned $1 trillion off the market value of tech giants led by Alibaba (9988.HK), opens new tab and Tencent(0070.HK), opens new tab.

Beijing's stringent new vetting system for Chinese firms listing abroad was expected to divert business from New York to Hong Kong. Instead, it helped to almost totally halt foreign IPOs, and global investors' doubts over Beijing’s support for China’s private sector have ossified in the absence of more forceful policy action to boost growth.

Didi isn't in the best financial health: it reported, opens new tab a net loss of 1.4 billion yuan ($193 million) in the first quarter, despite a 15% jump in total revenue. Its valuation, too, would be lower than earlier: Didi's stock, traded over-the-counter, values the firm at $22 billion. But the company's re-emergence as a listed name could be just the thing to help others catch a ride.