Hong Kong’s IPO boom is here: so are we.

Hong Kong’s IPO boom is here. So are we.

Five years is a long time to wait for a market to turn. Hong Kong’s has, and the numbers are no longer subtle about it.

In the first nine months of 2026, 116 companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and raised more than HK$388 billion. That’s more than double the same period last year, already ahead of the whole of 2025, and the strongest nine-month total since records began in 1980. It puts Hong Kong second globally for IPO proceeds, behind only Nasdaq (which had the small matter of SpaceX’s US$86.3 billion offering to thank for that) and ahead of the New York Stock Exchange. KPMG thinks the full year could approach HK$500 billion. That would break the HK$427 billion record set in 2010.

That’s the headline. The pipeline is the part worth sitting with.

By 30 October, HKEX had acknowledged 592 new listing applications this year alone, and KPMG puts the number of active applicants above 600. Earlier in the year, the figure doing the rounds in government circles was “around 300.” The pipeline has since moved well beyond that.

What’s driving it

AI and chips, with Beijing’s blessing. Mainland regulators have been steering artificial intelligence and semiconductor companies offshore, and Hong Kong is the first stop. By April, 23 of the 27 Chinese AI-related companies to go public this year had chosen Hong Kong over Shanghai or Shenzhen.

A+H listings. Companies already listed in Shanghai or Shenzhen have been adding a Hong Kong line to reach international money. KPMG counts 37 A+H listings in the first nine months, contributing nearly 70 per cent of IPO proceeds.

Rules built to win the business. Chapter 18C opened the door to pre-profit technology companies, and confidential filing has shortened the path. In July, the exchange adopted every proposal in the first phase of its listing competitiveness review, including universal confidential filing and more flexible weighted voting rights.

Mainland money. Mainland investors bought a record HK$1.19 trillion of Hong Kong shares through Southbound Stock Connect in the year to March. Southbound trading now makes up around a fifth of daily turnover.

Listing day is not the finish line

We think the pipeline matters more to our clients than the headline fundraising number does, because of what happens after listing day.

More than half of the companies that listed this year now trade below their offer price. In the third quarter, 14 of 30 new stocks debuted below their offer price, and October’s three new listings all closed below theirs on day one. AI chip designer Denglin, which listed on 10 November, priced at the bottom of its range and opened below its offer price. “Hong Kong stocks have lacked positive catalysts since August,” Solo Securities’ Nip Chun-pong told the South China Morning Post. When the market stops supplying the catalyst, the company has to supply its own.

A company that lists in Hong Kong this year joins the busiest queue the exchange has seen in years, competing for analyst coverage, institutional attention and retail visibility against more than 120 other new names and hundreds more still to come. Cornerstone investors often take close to half an offer and are locked up for six months. When that lock-up ends, the register changes. Thin free floats move sharply on light volume. And the register is cross-border by design: Southbound mainland investors, international funds and, for A+H companies, A-share holders all read the same announcement differently.

Investor relations isn’t a nice-to-have in that environment. It’s the difference between a stock that finds its natural holders and one that drifts. A meaningful share of this cohort is newly listed small and mid-caps that don’t yet have that function in-house. That’s our customer, arriving in volume, in the year this cycle is at its peak.

The Australian connection

There’s a regional dimension to this too, one we’ve watched build for a while from the Australian side of the Investability desk. Hong Kong has long positioned itself as the trusted intermediary between Australian business and Chinese capital and the reverse: a launchpad for Chinese companies expanding outward. The Australian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong now represents roughly 1,000 members across 280 companies, from ANZ and Macquarie to Telstra and QBE. Hong Kong remains home to the second-largest Australian expatriate community anywhere in the world, after London, at over 100,000 people. Hong Kong is also Australia’s fifth-largest source of foreign direct investment, concentrated in property, infrastructure and utilities.

Recent listings like Zijin Gold International and CATL are the scale end of that story, but the same market structure and the same capital-raising appetite that produced those deals is what’s now pulling hundreds of smaller companies onto the board behind them. Hong Kong is also now one of the world’s busiest venues for mining capital, which makes the bridge to Australia’s resources sector more valuable, not less.

We’ve decided that’s a market we want to serve from inside, not from a distance.

Investability has opened an office in Hong Kong.

It’s a direct response to what’s happening in this listing cycle, not a bet on some future one. The companies coming to market this year need investor relations support built for the pace and scrutiny of a record year, delivered by people who understand both the Hong Kong listing environment and the expectations of an international shareholder base. That’s what we’ve built our practice around, and it’s why being on the ground there, now, is the right call.

If you’ve listed this year, or plan to list next year, and your post-listing story isn’t yet where it needs to be, get in touch with the Investability team.

Author: Dannika Warburton

Dannika is Founder and Principal of Investability, an investor relations and media relations consultancy based in Australia and Hong Kong, with over 15 years capital markets experience across investment banking, institutional sales and IR.

Sources

• KPMG China, Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong IPO Markets 2026 Q3 Review, 6 October 2026
• HKEX, Report on IPO Applications, Delisting and Suspensions (October 2026), 30 October 2026
• South China Morning Post, “Hong Kong’s IPO haul in first 9 months smashes record despite Nasdaq’s fundraising lead”, October 2026
• The Standard, “Hong Kong sees strong IPO pipeline with 300 firms waiting to list, Paul Chan says”
• Kharon, “The Brief”, 21 April 2026
• O’Melveny, “HKEX Listing Framework Competitiveness Review Consultation Conclusions: Key Takeaways”, 2026
• South China Morning Post, “Southbound Stock Connect flows surge to record US$152b driven by Hong Kong’s IPO revival”, June 2026
• Mondo Visione, SFC quarterly market report, 26 August 2026
• South China Morning Post, “Has Hong Kong’s IPO boom hit a wall – or is a year-end rush still to come?”, 2 November 2026
• South China Morning Post, “Hong Kong’s IPO revival faces test as 3 new stocks stumble on debut”, September 2026
• The Standard, “Chinese chip firms Denglin, Xinde open mixed in Hong Kong debuts”, 10 November 2026
• The Standard, “Hong Kong: a familiar, trusted partner for Australian businesses”