China's EV battery leader surges in world's biggest listing this year

A leading Chinese electric-vehicle battery maker made its Hong Kong trading debut on Tuesday in the world’s biggest listing so far this year.

HONG KONG —  In the latest sign of the growing edge China’s clean energy companies have on their U.S. competitors, the country’s leading electric vehicle battery maker raised $4.6 billion in its Hong Kong trading debut on Tuesday — the largest in the world this year. 

Shares of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., or CATL, the largest EV battery maker, traded as much as 18.4% above the listing price of 263 Hong Kong dollars ($33.61), raising at least $4.6 billion. At a ceremony at the stock exchange in central Hong Kong, CATL’s billionaire founder Robin Zeng marked the start of trading by banging a bronze “megagong” reserved for only the biggest listings.

The company, which makes batteries for Tesla and other automakers and has a tech licensing agreement with Ford, controls more than a third of the global market for EV batteries.

“It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the battery space,” said Lei Xing, an independent analyst of the Chinese auto industry based in Amherst, Mass. “You could look at it as the Tesla of batteries.” 

International investors clamored for CATL stock despite U.S.-China tensions that have effectively kept it and other Chinese EV and battery makers — and their world-leading technology — out of the U.S., the second-largest passenger vehicle market in the world after China. U.S. investors were restricted from buying stock unless they had offshore accounts.