CBI members, UBS, JP Morgan and Honda raised over three billion Yuan to support China’s biggest electric vehicle battery manufacturer, Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL).
Listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange, CATL raised nearly 19.7 billion Yuan from nine investors through a share placement last week. This amount more than triples the amount raised from its IPO two years ago. The deal aims to expand production capacity and fund research and development (R&D), underscoring CATL’s ambition to better compete with foreign rivals in a lucrative but increasingly competitive market.
The company, which supplies batteries to automakers including BMW and Volkswagen, raised about 6.3 billion yuan, or nearly a third of the total, from four foreign investors after a bidding process. That included 1.1 billion yuan from Swiss financial titan UBS and 1.5 billion yuan from two subsidiaries of American conglomerate JPMorgan Chase. The rest came from a subsidiary of major Japanese automaker Honda Motor Company
Behind the largest successful bid was Chinese investment company Hillhouse Capital Management Ltd., who contributed 10 billion yuan, more than half of the total funding.
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