The current high-flyer to raise an initial public offering of about $1.4 billion in the New York Stock Exchange is a Chinese express delivery firm, raising speculations that foreign stocks are gaining a strong foothold in the US market.
ZTO Express, a leading Chinese logistics company, decided to become public and earned the reputation of being the largest US IPO for 2016. However, the company still has a lot to achieve before it can compare to the extensive logistics network of giants UPS or FedEx.
Nonetheless, it has started to put a question into the minds of industry insiders regarding foreign companies starting to dominate the stock market. Only recently, Line - a Japanese tech company specializing in instant messaging service- was leading the IPO ranking last July after it raised $1.3 billion in the NYSE.
ZTO further added to the list of Chinese firms going public as it now belongs to the ranks of foreign firms listed in the stock market together with Alibaba that broke records after it raised $25 billion back in 2014.
But unlike Alibaba and Line, ZTO share prices fell days after by around 6% to 10% and the market is still on the lookout for a positive trending for the company, especially since it was tied to a business partnership with Alibaba as one of its logistics provider. ZTO also captured the large market for parcel deliveries of domestic Chinese shipments.
ZTO Chief Finance Officer James Guo said that they hope to further expand operations beyond China and expressed hopes of establishing a partnership with global logistic companies to venture into the US delivery and logistics market.
No specific alliances have yet been initiated, but Guo said that it is already being planned out. Guo, however, said that they have reached out to JD.com and Amazon to handle their logistics and delivery services.
