FWD Group, an Asian insurer controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li, has updated its financial numbers ahead of a US IPO.
According to its latest filing on Tuesday, the company posted revenue of US$8.7bn for the first nine months of 2021, up 38% from a year earlier. Its net profit was US$225m, compared to a loss of US$353m a year earlier. It had 10.3 million customers as of September 30 2021.
FWD pre-marketed the float of up to US$3bn in October but was questioned by the US Securities and Exchange Commission about its ties to China. The company, which has no substantive operations in mainland China, then added a disclosure in its filing that “it cannot guarantee that the PRC government will not seek to intervene or influence its operations at any time”.
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, HSBC and CMB International are the bookrunners.
The SEC enquiry prompted FWD to contemplate other listing venues as a back-up plan, said people familiar with the situation.
It originally planned to list in Hong Kong in around mid-2021 but the city’s regulators told the insurer it was not an innovative company and hence could not list in Hong Kong with a weighted voting rights structure, people with knowledge of the matter told IFR at the time. Turning to Hong Kong would mean FWD may have to unwind that structure.
Before heading to the US, FWD had also considered a listing in Singapore, where the exchange also allows dual-class share listings but has no requirements around the type of companies that are eligible for the structure. However, the insufficient market liquidity there is a concern to the company.