The startup behind a TikTok-style video app rocketed in its Hong Kong market debut, in the latest demonstration of investor hunger for initial public offerings and for high-growth technology companies.
Shares in Kuaishou Technology more than doubled from their IPO price on Friday, implying a market value of about $159 billion, versus nearly $61 billion when the share sale was priced.
Kuaishou is backed by the Chinese tech giant
Tencent Holdings Ltd.
TCEHY 1.48%
and competes with ByteDance Ltd., the closely held Chinese firm behind TikTok and its domestic sister app, Douyin. The $5.4 billion initial public offering is the world’s largest in more than a year, according to Dealogic.
The offering is the latest in a string of hot IPOs in Hong Kong, many involving Chinese technology startups or other companies catering to China’s increasingly affluent consumers. Last year, for example, the bottled-water group
Nongfu Spring Co.
jumped