UK heavyweights guide $442m float as Hong Kong IPO market booms
Insurance group FWD raised $442 million in its long-awaited Hong Kong IPO, with Linklaters, Freshfields and Slaughter and May advising.
The deal lands amid a sharp rebound in Hong Kong listings, with IPO volume up eightfold year-on-year.
Three elite UK firms have landed lead roles on the listing of FWD Group, as Hong Kong’s IPO market continues its sharp rebound in 2025.
Linklaters and Freshfields advised the pan-Asian insurer on its $442 million (HK$3.5 billion) Hong Kong float, while Slaughters acted for joint sponsors Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs and the other underwriters. The deal marks one of the biggest Hong Kong listings this year, and the latest example of law firms cashing in on the city’s capital markets revival.
Linklaters acted as Hong Kong counsel to FWD, with a team led by corporate partners Roger Cheng and Donnelly Chan. Freshfields’ team was led by Hong Kong partners Arun Balasubramanian, Teresa Ko and Grace Huang. Slaughters’ team was headed by Hong Kong partners John Moore and Jing Chen.
Founded by billionaire Richard Li in 2013, FWD operates across ten Asian markets and scrapped a planned New York IPO in 2021 over regulatory approval issues. The Hong Kong listing landed into a market that’s red-hot.
An IPO market on fire
After a slow 2024, Hong Kong listings have bounced back. IPO volume is up more than eightfold to $14 billion in the first half of the year, according to Dealogic data reported by CNBC.
PwC predicts the city could top global IPO rankings in 2025 - outpacing even New York - and says that policy support from the Chinese government and several initiatives rolled out by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange have helped drive the jump in listings.
That surge is translating into plenty of work for US and UK law firms. In the past few months, Davis Polk advised on Chinese bubble tea giant Mixue’s $444 million IPO, Clifford Chance acted on air conditioning company Sanhua Intelligent’s $1.2 billion listing, while Latham, Cooley, Cleary and HSF have all secured major Hong Kong listing mandates.
As well as acting for the sponsors on Sanhua’s float, Linklaters also advised the sponsors on Hong Kong's biggest IPO of the year - electric vehicle battery maker CATL's blockbuster $4.6 billion listing in May. Kirkland advised CATL on the deal.
The pipeline looks even stronger in the second half of the year, with over 200 applications already filed, according to PwC.
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