WH Group Raises More Than $2 Billion in IPO Relaunch

WH Group Ltd.—the Chinese company that last year bought out US pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc.—has so far raised $2.05 billion from its initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong, which started on Tuesday. According to Bloomberg, the pork producer offered 2.57 billion shares priced at 80 cents. Share values are about 11.5 times the company’s 2014 expected earnings. According to agreements with underwriters BOC International and Morgan Stanley, WH Group can also sell additional shares, potentially raising the deal value to $2.36 billion.

This is the firm’s second IPO attempt. In April, an initial listing of $6 billion was approved and then lowered to $1.9 billion before the deal was finally scrapped. Investors cited concerns over the high valuation and the record 29 underwriters. WH Group has said it intends to use the IPO funds to pay off loans it incurred from last year’s $4.7 billion acquisition of Smithfield.

The WH Group IPO is the second-largest in Hong Kong this year, after January’s $3.11 billion HK Electric Investments Ltd deal, reports the Wall Street Journal. WH Group plans to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange on August 5.