Things are looking good for Xpeng Motors, the Chinese electric car maker, which has secured more money than it initially imagined from its U.S. initial public bid. The group's shares rallied as much as 67 percent Thursday, despite deepening frictions between China and the U.S.
The Alibaba-backed Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer disclosed it unloaded over 99 million shares at $15 American Depositary Shares apiece during its first foray in the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker XPEV, generating approximately $1.5 billion. The group's first strategy was to dispose of 85 million shares at $11 to $13 ADS each.
Xpeng, valued at around $15 billion in the market today, enlarged the scale of its listing with a securities price tag that was above the targeted marketed range as investment markets push to recompense fresh listings in what looks to be one of the most ideal periods for IPOs since the dot-com era.
Robust stock-price rallies in recent weeks by Tesla and NIO – once touted as the Chinese "Tesla Slayer" – have lifted investor interest in the electric car industry and inspired similar groups to file their own bids. For instance, Chinese EV firm Li Auto expanded the volume of its listing on Wall Street last month to secure $1.3 billion. The company's share price, which plunged more than 16 percent on Wednesday, had surged almost 70 percent since their debut.
Xpeng's IPO marks the third big listing in the U.S. by Chinese electric car makers since 2018. Companies have secured over $70 billion in public listings in New York so far this year, exceeding 2019 figures of $63 billion. Established in 2015, the Guangzhou-headquartered Xpeng also operates an office in Silicon Valley in California.
According to Xpeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng, the group will set its sights on battery-powered vehicles priced between $21,804 (150,000 yuan) to $43,000 (300,000 yuan), a key large-scale production segment in China, the largest car market in the globe.
