This article only represents the author's own views.
Sept. 10 was a special day for Tesla veteran Hou Yifei as he rang the opening bell on the Nasdaq to mark the trading debut for his electric vehicle (EV) charging company XCHG Ltd. (XCH.US), which also uses the XCharge name. An earlier attempt to list in February got a chillier reception, causing Deutsche Bank and Huatai Securities to jump ship as underwriters. That left the smaller U.S. Tiger Securities as sole underwriter of a deal that raised $20.7 million – less than half the previous $50 million target.
Despite the IPO’s smaller scale – or perhaps because of it – XCHG’s shares nearly tripled in their first trading week before settling down somewhat. At Wednesday’s close of $11.56, they were still up by a healthy 86% over the offer price of $6.20, valuing the company at nearly $700 million two weeks after the IPO.