WH Group cuts US$408m in Smithfield first follow-on
Hong Kong-listed WH Group harvested US$454m from Smithfield Foods in a follow-on stock sale, making the Virginia-based pork processor one of the few members of the 2025 IPO class that have returned to market this year.
Over the requisite two days of marketing, Smithfield's shares fell 3.9% to close Thursday's session at US$24.24.
Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays priced an upsized sale of 19.5m shares at US$23.25, a 4.1% discount to Thursday's closing price and 8.9% below Tuesday's closing price of US$25.51. The offering size was increased from 16m shares.
Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and BNP Paribas also worked on the deal.
As the lone selling shareholder, WH Group spun off Smithfield in a difficult US$572m Nasdaq IPO in January that was both downsized and priced deeply below the original US$23–$27 indicative range at US$20.
Having sold 13m shares on the IPO, WH Group is cutting its Smithfield stake from 92.7% to just under 88%.
The WH Group chairman Wan Long helped to smooth execution by purchasing up to 1.8m shares sold at the public offering price.
Smithfield joined a rather elite list of 2025 IPO classmates that have already returned with registered first-time follow-ons.
Stablecoin play Circle Internet raised US$1.3bn last month just 71 days after going public. In July, defence contractor Karman cashed out its PE backer Trive Capital in July through a US$1bn first-time follow-on after going public in March.
With the average member of the 2025 IPO class now trading 27.7% above issue, the flow of first-time follow-ons is only going to accelerate through the end of this year.
Biotechs Ascentage Pharma (up123.7%) and Metsera (up 101.6%) are notable outperformers from the first half of this year’s clutch of new issues, making them likely candidates to return to market at some point.