Executives and guests attend the listing ceremony of Zhongji Innolight at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in Hong Kong, China, July 30, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. REUTERS/Jiaxing Li Purchase Licensing Rights
HONG KONG/SINGAPORE, July 30 (Reuters) - Zhongji Innolight's new Hong Kong shares closed 2% lower on Thursday after a mixed trading debut for the Chinese maker of data-centre optical parts, which raised HK$53.4 billion ($6.8 billion) in the city's biggest share sale this year.
The shares closed at HK$960. They had opened at HK$971 and hit a high of HK$973 before sliding to an intraday low of HK$880 in afternoon trade, a fall of 10.2% from the offer price of HK$980. Its Shenzhen-listed shares (300308.SZ) dropped 9.1%.
Make sense of global markets with the Trading Day newsletter. Sign up here.
Advertisement · Scroll to continue
Zhongji ranked as the second most actively traded stock by turnover on the Hong Kong bourse, after Tencent (0700.HK), with 12.2 million shares worth HK$11.5 billion changing hands. It was ahead of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (0981.HK), Z.AI (2513.HK) and Alibaba (9988.HK).
The benchmark Hang Seng Index (.HSI) gained 0.2%, while the Hang Seng Tech Index (.HSTECH) fell 1.3%.
Zhongji's Hong Kong debut followed a pullback in Asian chip shares as investors questioned high valuations, the cost of building AI data centres and, outside of China, competition from Chinese technology suppliers.
Advertisement · Scroll to continue
"This primarily reflects the significant pullback in AI-related stocks in both Hong Kong and overseas markets since its bookbuilding started," said Kenny Ng, strategist at China Everbright Securities International.
Zhongji makes optical transceivers used to move data through fibre-optic cables in data centres.
Zhongji's lead in high-speed optical communications and its AI infrastructure spending could support earnings growth over the medium-to-long term, but the stock could face high near-term volatility, Ng said.
RICH DEMAND, WEAK DEBUT
The Hong Kong offering was subscribed 16.84 times and the international tranche 9.73 times, a filing to the Hong Kong Exchange on Wednesday showed.
Zhongji said in the filing that concentrated Hong Kong share ownership could cause sharp price moves. The top 25 shareholders of the offering held 61.38% of the Hong Kong share capital at listing, the filing showed.
The share sale was Hong Kong's biggest since Alibaba raised $12.9 billion in a secondary listing in 2019, LSEG data showed.
It was also Asia's second-largest share sale so far this year after Chinese memory chip maker CXMT raised $8.6 billion and rose 466% in its Shanghai debut on Monday. CXMT was down 0.15% on Thursday.
Companies have raised $33.8 billion from share sales in Hong Kong so far in 2026, a record year-to-date total and more than double the $16.4 billion raised in the same period a year earlier, LSEG data showed.
"The rapid development of the digital economy and artificial intelligence is reshaping the global industrial landscape," Liu Sheng, Zhongji's chairman, executive director and president, said at the listing ceremony.
Zhongji said it was the world's largest optical interconnect solutions provider by revenue last year with a 21.2% market share, citing consultancy CIC.
Advertisement · Scroll to continue
The U.S. accounted for 61.7% of first-quarter revenue.
In June, the U.S. added Zhongji to a list of companies that it suspects have Chinese military ties. Zhongji said its addition lacked factual or legal basis, and it had not resulted in material order cancellations, suspensions or delays.
($1 = 7.8424 Hong Kong dollars)
Reporting by Donny Kwok and Jiaxing Li in Hong Kong and Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Christopher Cushing, Christian Schmollinger and Alexander Smith
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.