JD.com stock jumps 6% in Hong Kong debut amid annual sale

HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com’s stock jumped nearly 6% on its debut in Hong Kong on Thursday after the firm raised $3.9 billion in a share sale.

JD.com, which is already listed on the Nasdaq in New York, opened at $239 Hong Kong dollars ($30.83) per share on Thursday, up from its offer price of $226 Hong Kong dollars ($29.16).

The company’s strong debut comes as a growing number of Chinese technology companies choose to list in Hong Kong amid growing regulatory pressures and a worsening of relations between Beijing and Washington that could see Chinese companies cut off from U.S. capital markets.

“When we went public six years ago, the entire capital market at the time was still inclined towards Europe and the U.S. In recent years, although we have had some expansion in our international business, our core users and business of JD.com is still largely on mainland China,” said Xu Lei, chief executive of JD Retail in an interview.

He said the company chose to hold its secondary listing in Hong Kong because it is one of the “world’s freest market economies” and because investors in Hong Kong understand mainland businesses and are very “mature" and “stable."

“We think that because of consumers in Asia and the retail and internet industry, investors will be more familiar with our development and improvements each year. We hope to have some changes in terms of the investors in our company’s capital structure,” he said.

Last week, Chinese gaming firm NetEase debuted in Hong Kong, raising about $2.7 billion with its stock closing 6% higher on the first day of trading. NetEase is also listed in New York. Its shares have fallen about 6% since then.

JD.com rival Alibaba Group Holding held a secondary listing in November in Hong Kong...