The boutique company, which operations include capital markets and advisory, asset management and insurance brokerage, wants to list its IB unit on the Nasdaq in the US.
“AMTD wants to beef up its international network,” said one of the sources. “They want to be bigger and more global and can do a lot in the US with their China connectivity. So listing in the US is part of that plan.”
The IPO is slated for early 2018. AMTD is looking to raise about $300m-$400m from the listing. No banks have been mandated yet for the transaction.
It is not the only deal in the works. As reported by GlobalCapital Asia in December, AMTD also wants to list its insurance arm. The planned Hong Kong IPO has seen plenty of progress recently thanks to some pre-IPO funding coming its way.
The source said that AMTD has lined up Chinese selfie editing app Meitu’s controlling shareholder Cai Wensheng, Fox FinTech Group (formerly known as souyidai.com) which is the finance arm of internet company Sohu, and Morgan Stanley Private Equity as pre-IPO investors for the insurance division.
AMTD is also understood to be in talks with a south-east Asian family to come on board as an investor.
China Merchants Securities (CSMC) and Everbright Securities International have been tapped as the sponsors on the listing, with AMTD as a joint global co-ordinator . Standard Chartered is the financial adviser.
AMTD’s insurance arm could raise more than $200m from the listing, slated for this year.
Chairman Calvin Choi told GlobalCapital Asia in an interview last year that AMTD has ambitious expansion plans, including setting up offices in New York and London in 2017.
The sources said that the New York office has opened with two people on the ground, with more people expected to be hired. The London office is yet to open.
Separately, AMTD is also looking to expand into south-east Asia with the acquisition of a boutique securities company in Vietnam, expected to be completed in the first half. This is still subject to regulatory approval at this stage.
AMTD is one of Asia’s newer financial firms, having started operations back in 2003. The non-banking financial institution was founded by CK Hutchison Holdings — controlled by billionaire Li Ka- shing — and Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Since then, its ownership structure has seen big changes with the introduction of Morgan Stanley Private Equity as a strategic investor in 2014. That was followed by China Minsheng Investment (CMI) and Canadian private equity firm LR Capital, both of which took majority stakes in 2015, with AMTD launching its capital markets business in mid-2015.
It has crept up the league tables since. Last year, it ranked among the top 50 G3 bond bookrunners in Asia ex-Japan with a 0.31% market share, according to Dealogic. Year-to-date, it has a position within the top 40 bookrunners with league table credits for eight deals.