I-Mab’s board of directors approved a preliminary proposal for the secondary listing on Tuesday. The company, which already trades in the US, is targeting an A-share IPO on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style Star market. It has appointed CICC as sponsor for the listing, which it expects to complete in 2022, according to an announcement by the company on Tuesday.
“The potential dual listing on the Star board in China will enable us to tap into a complementary shareholder base in the onshore market to support our exciting growth and transition into a fully-integrated global biopharma company,” said I-Mab’s chief financial officer Jielun Zhu.
The A-share IPO is also part of I-Mab's wider plan for a listing in Hong Kong.
“We are making concrete progress in our plan to pursue further equity listings on Greater China stock exchanges [including the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Hong Kong Stock Exchange],” said Zhu.
I-Mab’s announcement came as offshore-listed Chinese stocks, primarily of education and technology companies, nosedived.
News this week of a drastic change in policy for Mainland education companies triggered the freefall, the latest upset following weeks of uncertainty amid a regulatory crackdown on technology firms. The revised rules for education providers will potentially bar private companies from overseas IPOs and cut them off from other forms of foreign capital.
I-Mab’s US stock has also suffered through the furore, closing at $60.70 on Tuesday, down 3.54% on the day and 23.93% over the past month. But the share price is still up 34.17% year-to-date.
The issuer is a clinical-stage biopharma firm that focuses on discovery, development and commercialization of therapies for immuno-oncology and autoimmune diseases. It has a pipeline of more than 10 clinical and pre-clinical stage drug candidates.
I-Mab listed on the Nasdaq in January 2020, raising $114m from an IPO of American depository shares.