Chinese chip firm Montage Technology soars 64% in Hong Kong debut

By Donny Kwok and Yantoultra Ngui HONG KONG/SINGAPORE, Feb 9 (Reuters) – China's Montage Technology surged 64% in its Hong Kong trading debut on Monday after the world's biggest memory interconnect chip supplier raised HK$7.04 billion ($900 million) in a share sale to mainly fund research. Montage makes data centre memory interface chips that help artificial intelligence computer networks move data faster between processors and memory. The shares opened at HK$168 compared to their offer price of HK$106.89. They jumped to as much as HK$176 in late trade before closing at HK$175. The stock was the tenth most actively traded by turnover early on Monday. Shanghai-listed Montage offered 65.9 million shares in Hong Kong at a maximum offer price of HK$106.89 each. Besides R&D, the proceeds will be used to fund commercialisation, strategic investments or acquisitions and working capital, according to its prospectus. The retail portion of the offering was more than 700 times oversubscribed and the international tranche more than 37 times, according to the company's allotment results announcement on Friday. The offering garnered 17 cornerstone investors who committed $450 million, including JPMorgan Asset Management, UBS Asset Management and Yunfeng Capital. Founded in 2004, Montage is the biggest memory interconnect chip supplier globally, with a 36.8% market share by revenue in 2024, according to its prospectus, which cited consultancy and research firm Frost & Sullivan. The company's revenue increased 58% to 4.1 billion yuan ($591 million) in the nine months ended September 30, 2025, from 2.6 billion yuan in the same period a year ago. Net profit jumped 64% to 1.6 billion yuan. Winston Ma, an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law and former head of North America for CIC, China's sovereign wealth fund, said U.S. sanctions limiting China's access to advanced chips such as Nvidia's were accelerating capital and policy support for China's domestic semiconductor value chain, including "middleware" chip designers such as Montage. "The strong lineup of global cornerstone buyers suggests that Chinese AI-related IPOs are attracting institutional investors back to the HKEX market again," he said, referring to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. "Montage's Hong Kong debut underscores how China's AI chip ecosystem is moving 'up the stack' from basic components toward specialised chips that connect processors and memory inside data centers," he added. Montage's listing also comes as Hong Kong logged its strongest start to a year since 2021, with IPOs and second listings raising about $5.5 billion in January, the most since $7.6 billion was raised in January 2021, LSEG data showed. Upcoming debuts include Axera Semiconductor and industrial automation equipment maker Wuxi Lead Intelligent Equipment. CICC, Morgan Stanley and UBS were joint sponsors of Montage's offering. ($1 = 7.8142 Hong Kong dollars) ($1 = 6.9388 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Donny Kwok in Hong Kong and Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Muralikumar Anantharaman and Christian Schmollinger)

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