(News Bulletin 247) – The Chinese electric batteries wish to enter the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, in addition to a main rating in Shenzhen.

Chinese electric batteries CATL, already listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, filed an introductory file on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Tuesday, according to the document transmitted to the financial center manager.

CATL has appointed seven banks as coordinators of the operation, according to a document of 527 page detailing information in particular financial on the company, the first step in what analysts see as a gigantic operation to doper Hong Kong as a hub on stock market stock market quotes .

The company is already listed in Shenzhen and its project on a secondary rating in Hong Kong had been announced in communication on the Stock Exchange in December.

“This operation is first of all intended to create an international financing platform to support the development of our global activity,” the group told AFP on January 14.

Customers like Mercedes-Benz, Toyota

Founded in 2011 in the city of Ningde, on the eastern coast of China, CATL provides a third of the global battery market for electric vehicles, with customers like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai.

Catl had also announced on December 10 the creation in Spain with Stellantis, for 4.1 billion euros, of a large plant of electric batteries.

This factory, built on the Stellantis site in Zaragoza, in northeast Spain, will produce so-called LFP (Lithium-Fer-Phosphate) batteries, as part of a co-company held 50/50 per Stellantis and Catl.

The company benefited from solid financial support from Beijing, which has given priority to the development of high -tech national industries which it considers strategic. At the national level, the success of the company in recent years has been stimulated by rapid growth on the domestic market.

For its part, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange is impatiently awaiting the return of major Chinese companies in the hope of regaining its status as the world’s first place for the IPO.

The Chinese financial center experienced a constant decrease in the IPO after the entry into force of draconian regulatory measures imposed by Beijing from 2020, which had led certain large Chinese companies to suspend their rating projects.

On January 7, the American Department of Defense had included CATL in a list of companies which, according to him, are affiliated with the Chinese armed forces, in a context of strong commercial and geopolitical rivalries between the two powers. CATL denies being engaged in military activities.

(With AFP)