Searching for smart, safe news you can TRUST?
Support safe, smart, REAL journalism. Sign up for our Axios AM & PM newsletters and get smarter, faster.
Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday
Catch up on coronavirus stories and special reports, curated by Mike Allen everyday
Denver news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Denver
Des Moines news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Des Moines
Minneapolis-St. Paul news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Twin Cities
Tampa Bay news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Tampa Bay
Charlotte news in your inbox
Catch up on the most important stories affecting your hometown with Axios Charlotte
While American companies were returning hundreds of billions of dollars to shareholders, for Chinese companies the flows went in the other direction, Caixin's Yang Ge reports.
Driving the news: They raised an astonishing amount of money in 2018 — some $45.6 billion in Hong Kong and New York alone. That's more than double the $19.2 billion raised in 2017; it's also more than double the $20.7 billion raised in Chinese domestic IPOs.
- Cellular tower operator China Tower Corp raised $7.5 billion in August. By contrast, the biggest U.S. IPO of 2018, Axa Equitable, raised just $2.75 billion.
- There's still a healthy pipeline of Chinese companies looking to go public in 2019, although a bear market and/or a trade war could derail those plans.
Be smart: A lot of the money piling into these IPOs is entirely speculative, and that pool of liquidity can dry up as fast as it appeared. Chinese individual investors are being hit by a wave of shadow-banking defaults, and high-profile startups, especially in the scooter-sharing space, are running aground.