Jie Rong plans to apply for a capital raising of 780 million in the middle of next year's listing in Hong Kong at the earliest.

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Jie Rong Group, a local "time-honored" coffee and black tea brand, plans to list in Hong Kong next year! According to investment bank sources, Jierong plans to list on the main board and is expected to submit an application for listing (commonly known as form A1) to the Stock Exchange as soon as the middle of this month, raising about US $100m (that is, about HK $780 million). BOC International and Shanghai Bank International are listing arrangement banks.

Huang Datang, the current chairman and chief executive of Jie Rong's third generation, mentioned earlier that the purpose of listing in Hong Kong was to fulfill his father's wish. In fact, after delisting from Singapore in 2013, it is reported that Jie Rong has actively deployed to list in Hong Kong, and in 2014, Mitsui, a large Japanese conglomerate, was introduced as a strategic investor. Mitsui bought less than 20% of Gerong's shares at that time. About 2.2 billion yen (equivalent to about HK $160 million) was involved, making it the second largest shareholder of Jierong, while Huang Datang held all the rest and was the largest shareholder of the group. According to the purchase price of Mitsui, Jierong had a market capitalization of about 800 million yuan at that time.

Jie Rong did not respond to the plan to list in Hong Kong.

■ Jierong Zeng artist Chen Hao served as the brand spokesman and opened a concept coffee shop.

Hong Kong's market share is as high as 80%.

Founded in 1932, Jie Rong, formerly known as Jie Rong, is engaged in grocery sales, wholesale and coffee roasting, while supplying coffee and black tea to local cafes. Standing in Hong Kong for 85 years, Jie Rong has been at the helm of the third generation and has become the largest provider of coffee and black tea catering services in Greater China. Its customers include hotels and chain restaurants, such as McDonald's, Guele (341), Da Happy (052), Cuihua (1314), Yoshino and so on. Its tea coffee kingdom has a market share of 80% in Hong Kong, which can be said to be a monopoly.

In addition to the main wholesale business, Jie Rong has also entered the retail market. 20 years ago, it launched instant coffee and milk tea, which were put on the shelves in supermarkets. In recent years, it has also represented Lipton Black Tea, coffee machines and other products, and opened up the business of frozen food. But its performance still seems to be lower than that of wholesale.

In order to make the brand more "close to the ground", Jie Rong hired the "Coffee Prince" and artist Chen Hao as brand spokesmen in 2009, and set up concept coffee shops in Central and Tsim Sha Tsui, but they all closed down one after another.

Mainland business becomes the driving force for growth

Some analysts pointed out that Jie Rong's brand is known to many people in Hong Kong, which may increase the interest of retail investors, but "investment is another matter." He pointed out that Jie Rong business is ostensibly simple wholesale trading, but behind or involving coffee futures hedging, investors should pay attention to its cost volatility or greater.

Jie Rong was listed in Singapore in 2001. Huang Datang once pointed out that due to the inactive trading, coupled with the fact that some family members had no intention of developing or even wanted to sell the company, he decided to privatize Jie Rong. The last time Jierong released financial data was in 2012, when it earned 602 million yuan and earned 22.5 million yuan. According to Jierong's official website, the Group has focused on expanding the Chinese market in recent years, which has quickly become the main driving force of the group's business growth.

In 2012, a trademark dispute broke out between Jie Rong and Singapore's high-end tea brand TWG (The Wellness Group) in Hong Kong. Jie Rong sued TWG for infringement, which was entangled by officials and non-officials for four years. Jie Rong Group won the final victory last year, which also swept away the uncertainties in the listing plan.