Travel Retailer China Tourism Group Duty Free Corporation Limited Restarts Hong Kong IPO

China Tourism Group Duty Free Corporation Limited, a travel retailer, submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange again on Thursday, proposing to list on the main board, with CICC and UBS as co-sponsors.

On June 25, 2021, the company had submitted a prospectus to the HKEx and passed the initial listing hearing in mid-November of the same year. The company later decided to suspend its IPO in early December.

The company now plans to raise $2 billion to $3 billion, and expects to complete the listing in the third quarter at the earliest.

Established in 1984, China Tourism Group Duty Free Corporation Limited focuses on providing duty-free or taxed goods sales services for domestic and foreign tourists and middle and high-end consumers. It currently operates 193 stores, including 184 stores in China and 9 overseas duty-free shops.

In terms of geographical coverage, the company has the best duty-free retail outlets in China and occupies the core channels of duty-free sales in Hainan, including the Haikou Meilan International Airport, Sanya Phoenix Airport, the urban area of Haikou and Sanya, and the area for the Boao Forum in Asia.

In addition, the company operates franchised duty-free shops in major aviation hubs in China and the Asia-Pacific region, including 9 of the top 10 airports in China according to the international passenger throughput before the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in 2019.

According to Frost & Sullivan, from 2019 to 2021, only the airports where the company opened stores provided services for more than 2.2 billion passengers.

Further, in terms of sales revenue, the ranking of the company has improved from 19th in 2010 to 1st in 2020 and 2021. It accounted for 24.6% of the global tourism retail market share in 2021.

SEE ALSO: Venture Capital Firm Tiantu Capital Applies for Hong Kong IPO

In 2019, 2020 and 2021, the total number of registered members of the company was about 1.2 million, 12 million and 20.3 million respectively, with a compound annual growth rate of 311.3%. From 2019 to 2021, its revenue was 48.013 billion yuan, 52.598 billion yuan and 67.676 billion yuan respectively, while its net profit was 5.471 billion yuan, 7.109 billion yuan and 12.441 billion yuan respectively.