Unitree IPO draws 5,526 times retail demand for shares

Unitree Robotics’ initial public offering drew heavy demand from individual investors as the Chinese humanoid robot maker opened books for an offering expected to value the company at $9 billion, according to Bloomberg News.

Bloomberg, citing calculations based on a Shanghai exchange filing released Monday, reported that the retail portion of the Unitree IPO was 5,526 times subscribed. Individual investors submitted 9.8 million orders for about 8.1 trillion yuan ($1.2 trillion) of shares.

The size of the retail order book puts Unitree in rare company among recent Chinese listings. Bloomberg said the demand exceeded the 7.1 trillion yuan (about $990 billion) retail order book for memory chipmaker CXMT Corp’s offering last month, which it described as the second biggest China debut ever.

For the humanoid robotics sector, this is a capital markets story rather than a new robot capability update. The Bloomberg report identifies Unitree as China’s leading humanoid robot maker, but does not provide new specifications, production figures, proceeds, or use of funds for the offering. The clear data point is investor appetite, and on that measure the Unitree IPO has already become one of the more closely watched public market tests for a humanoid robotics company.

Source: bloomberg.com