China Tower Corporation, the largest telecoms tower group by revenue, is seeking to raise up to $8.68bn in a Hong Kong initial public offering that would value the state-backed company as high as $35bn.
The Beijing-based mobile infrastructure group’s listing marks a break in the long pipeline of new tech Chinese IPOs this year. The smartphone maker Xiaomi raised $4.7bn in June, and a flood of smaller Chinese tech and ecommerce deals are expected to come to Hong Kong and New York over the next year.
China Tower controls more than 1.8m mobile towers, or about 97 per cent of the network that supports China’s mobile communications. The second-largest company in the market has just 17,260 towers, according to China Tower’s listing application.