Bitmain’s IPO On The Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) Lapses

By Sumedha Bose

The giant in cryptocurrency mining equipment production, Bitmain, is having a rather difficult time this week in light of the lapse of its application for an initial public offering (IPO) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX).

What we know is that Bitmain’s case has been shifted to a group of “inactive” applications and is now under the lapsed category. The application was filed by Bitmain almost six months before. The latest update is visible on HKEX’s website.

According to a listing rule from the HKEX,

“the latest financial period reported on by the reporting accountants for a new applicant must not have ended more than six months from the date of the listing documents.”

This means that Bitmain can re-file the application if they so wish to, but they would need to present additional financial records which are not included in their initial filing. The last public filing from Bitmain only covers the period ending June 30, 2018, which was nearly nine months ago.

Those wondering why HKEX is not considering Bitmain’s application, it is possibly due to the volatility of the market and the industry in general.

Just in the first half of 2018, Bitmain raked in a net profit of nearly $1 billion, after having made over $1 billion for all of 2017. However, post the market slump of 2018, Bitmain suffered a loss of about $500 million in the third quarter of last year.

As of now we don’t know if Bitmain is going to file for a second time. The said on Tuesday:

“Bitmain’s listing application to HKex in September 2018 has reached its 6-month expiration date. … We will restart the listing application work at an appropriate time in the future.”

There’s also been a change in the ranks. The co-founders Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan have stepped down as co-CEOs and Haichao Wang, who was previously a director of product engineering at Bitmain, has been officially appointed Bitmain’s CEO.

Sumedha Bose

Sumedha uses words as her crutch to get by in life. She takes a keen interest in debating, dancing and destroying the patriarchy in her free time.

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