Chinese hotel chain Atour Lifestyle Holdings has raised USD52.23 million in its Nasdaq debut after selling 4.75 million American depositary shares (ADS) priced at USD11 each, the lowest end of the IPO range.
Though its IPO slashed nearly 83% from the initial prospectus of USD300 million last year, the appearance of two bulge bracket banks, Citigroup and BofA Securities, as sponsors may indicate a U-turn in the endorsement of Chinese companies’ listings. CICC and CMB International were also involved in the deal as underwriters.
After China’s ride-hailing giant DiDi’s US listing in 2021 was dampened by the country’s watchdog, major investment banks avoided such IPOs from Chinese companies.
Davis Polk acted as the issuer’s US federal securities and New York state counsel, while JunHe and Maples Group acted as PRC and Cayman Islands counsel, respectively.
As for the underwriters, Latham & Watkins advised on the US federal securities and New York state law, while Zhong Lun Law Firm advised on PRC law.
JunHe’s team was led by partners Wang Yi and Sun Xiaojia, and lawyer Lawrence Ho, with support from partner Zhou Fang. Partners Dong Xiao and Yuan Qiong assisted with data compliance and cyber security matters.
Partners Anthony Zhao and William Jia led Zhong Lun’s team.
Atour Lifestyle is backed by global travel service provider Trip.com Group and Legend Capital – the financial arm of Lenovo.
The hotel chain described itself as “the largest upper midscale hotel chain in China in terms of room number as of the end of 2020” in the prospectus. The company’s latest data showed it had 834 hotels in 151 cities across the country as of 30 June this year.
