Hong Kong IPOs Draw 993 Cornerstone Seats and HKD 147.349 Billion in 2026

Hong Kong's initial public offering market continued to heat up in 2026, with the composition of cornerstone investors shifting alongside it. Statistics show that 89 Hong Kong-listed companies with relevant data secured a combined 993 cornerstone investor subscription seats during the year, without deduplication, subscribing to about 2.654 billion shares for a corresponding subscription amount of approximately HKD 147.349 billion. Beyond the continued activity of traditional cornerstone players such as mainland public funds, insurance capital and industrial capital, global large asset managers, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and long-only funds appeared more frequently on Hong Kong IPO cornerstone lists.

By number of cornerstone investors, the 89 companies averaged about 11.2 cornerstone investor seats each. Of these, 46 companies had 10 or more cornerstone investors, 28 had 15 or more, and 11 had 20 or more. Victory Giant Technology led with 39 cornerstone investor seats, while Zhongji Innolight and Luxshare Precision had 35 and 33 respectively. Changguang Chenxin had 30, while Shengbang shares and Biren Technology had 25 and 23 respectively. Lingyi iTech, Sigenergy and Zhaowei Machinery & Electronics each reached 21. By subscription amount, Zhongji Innolight's cornerstone subscription amount was about HKD 26.704 billion, ranking first. Luxshare Precision followed at about HKD 11.753 billion, Victory Giant Technology at about HKD 7.812 billion, Muyuan Foods at about HKD 5.342 billion and Dongpeng Beverage at about HKD 4.99 billion. The top ten companies by subscription amount together accounted for more than half of the cornerstone subscription amount of the 89 companies.

International institutions appeared in concentrated form on the cornerstone lists of some projects. Zhongji Innolight's cornerstone list included Wellington Management, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, JPMorgan Asset Management, BlackRock, a Temasek-related investment entity and Bain Capital, covering global asset management, sovereign wealth funds and alternative investment institutions. Mech-Mind Robotics' cornerstone investors included The Invus Group, Jane Street, Australian pension fund NGS Super and UK asset manager Baillie Gifford. The cornerstone lists of some projects simultaneously featured mainland public funds, insurance asset managers, industrial capital and overseas long-only capital.

In 2026, four AI companies, Biren Technology, Zhipu, Iluvatar CoreX and MiniMax, raised a combined total of about USD 2.5 billion, of which cornerstone investors subscribed about USD 1.3 billion, with the average cornerstone subscription ratio reaching 58%. International investors contributed close to 30% of the fundraising amount of those four companies.

Hong Kong's IPO market itself expanded in tandem. In the first eight months of 2026, Hong Kong IPO fundraising amounted to HKD 342.4 billion. As of September 16, 2026, a total of 108 companies had completed Hong Kong listings, up 77.05% year on year. IPO fundraising exceeded HKD 364.1 billion, an increase of 152.7% from HKD 144.1 billion in the same period of 2025, and surpassing the full-year 2025 IPO fundraising scale of HKD 286.9 billion. In terms of issuer structure, a growing number of leading A-share companies chose the A+H path, large projects in technology, advanced manufacturing and consumer sectors listed in Hong Kong, and issuers from markets such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East also began to increase. Chen Yiting said that three of the world's top five IPOs in 2026 chose to list in Hong Kong, and companies' demand for financing in Hong Kong has extended from pure fundraising to connecting with global capital, customers and partners.