Shanghai Laiyifen IPO to fund expansion

Shanghai Laiyifen, the owner and operator of a chain of snack food stores in China, has completed an IPO in Shanghai, listing on Wednesday.

Laiyifen is the first Chinese company specialising in snacks to go public. On the same day its massive advertising hoarding in New York’s Times Square was unveiled.

After 17 years, the company has transformed itself from a small snack shop on a Shanghai street into a robust snack foods business, drawing the attention of both domestic and international media organisations by creating a buzz in Shanghai and New York simultaneously.

Laiyifen opened its first store in 1999 and has since established a network of 2271 outlets across more than 10 Chinese provinces and municipalities, including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Shandong provinces, and the cities of Shanghai, Tianjin and Beijing.

In addition, the company has deployed an omnichannel marketing model combining online with offline operations. With over 13 million loyal members, Laiyifen boasts annual sales in excess of RMB3 billion (approx. US$450 million) and has served over 450 million consumers in the aggregate.

Wednesday’s listing raised some RMB660 million (US$98.3 million) by issuing up to 60 million shares (25 per cent of its post-issue share capital), and appointed China Securities as lead underwriter.

Laiyifen’s controlling shareholders and actual controllers have all made a commitment to restrictions on the number of shares they can hold. The company’s other shareholders have, as well, made a commitment to voluntary lock-up of shares in their possession.