Another billionaire has been minted thanks to the online shopping boom that’s expanding from China to Southeast Asia.
J&T Global Express Ltd. started trading on Friday in Hong Kong’s after completing the city’s second biggest initial public offering of 2023, leaving its founder Li “Jet” Jie with a $1.5 billion net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Shares climbed just 0.17% to HK$12.02 Friday morning. The courier company, which provides delivery services for online stores like Shein and Pinduoduo, raised $500 million in the IPO.
Li, who has an 11% stake in J&T, is the latest Chinese billionaire to be created from the online shopping surge of the past two decades, and the first with a fortune that originated in Southeast Asia, according to the Bloomberg index.
The online retail frenzy has produced several shopping moguls from China, including Jack Ma of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., China’s largest e-commerce company, who’s worth $28.5 billion. There’s also SF Holding Co.’s Wang Wei, ZTO Express Cayman Inc.’s Lai Meisong and Yunda Holding Co.’s Nie Tengyun, who are all billionaires.
A spokesperson for J&T declined to comment.
Li, 48, started J&T after spending more than 15 years at Chinese smartphone maker OPPO, helping to expand its operations in Southeast Asia. After founding J&T in Jakarta in 2015, the company grew throughout the rest of the region and then into China in 2020. As of 2022, J&T represented more than 20% of the express delivery industry’s market share in Southeast Asia and handled more than three times the package volume of the next biggest player, according to the prospectus.
J&T’s quick expansion attracted a group of big name investors, including Tencent Holdings Ltd., SF Express, Sequoia Capital and Li’s former employer, OPPO.
J&T’s presence in China has also been growing. More than half of the company’s $7.3 billion revenue in 2022 came from business in the country, overtaking Southeast Asia as its biggest region, according to the prospectus.
“J&T’s mainland China expansion is eye-catching,” said Wang Ting, analyst at Essence Securities in a report, “but the low-cost strategy is hard to sustain in mid-to-long term.”
J&T recorded $1.5 billion in adjusted losses last year and is only profitable in Southeast Asia, according to the prospectus. The company launched operations in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Brazil and Egypt in 2022, bringing the number of countries it works in to 13. Last year, it also named soccer star Lionel Messi as a brand ambassador.
A British Virgin Islands vehicle tied to Chen “Tony” Mingyong, founder of smartphone maker Oppo, owns 4.2% of J&T, according to the filings. Liang Xiaojing, Chen’s wife, separately controls a 3.7% stake in J&T, the filing shows.
J&T’s debut is the biggest in the city since ZJLD Group Inc.’s $676 million listing in April. They’re the only two companies that raised more than half a billion dollars in Hong Kong since the start of the year. J&T’s IPO is poised to give an indication of appetite for new shares in what has been a tough year in the traditionally busy Asian hub. IPO proceeds in Hong Kong slumped 63% to about $4.1 billion on the annual comparison, hit by headwinds ranging from high interest rates to economic and geopolitical woes tied to China.
(Updates with share move in second paragraph)
Author: Pui Gwen Yeung, Venus Feng and Filipe Pacheco