Clawback

Another week, another Hong Kong IPO with a silly number of bookrunners on the tombstone. WH Group, the Chinese pork producer formerly known as Shuanghui International, and which made headlines last year with the acquisition of Smithfield Foods in the US, has lined up no fewer than 28 houses to market and underwrite its up to $6bn flotation – and that’s not even an April Fools’ Day joke.

Alibaba has finally picked the US for its long-awaited IPO, which could top the $15bn mark. This followed a round-robin of exploratory permutations with a variety of listing venues, including Hong Kong’s HKEx, London’s LSE (with Prime Minister David Cameron said to have acted as luxury salesman, in a bid to woo founder Jack Ma to the UK), the NYSE and Nasdaq.