Chinese investors are preparing bids for ChangXin Memory Technologies' $8.6 billion initial public offering, wagering that the country's largest memory chipmaker could see its valuation multiply as much as ten times after a Shanghai debut expected on July 27. The offering, priced at 8.66 yuan a share for an implied valuation of 579.18 billion yuan, will be Asia's largest share sale this year and opens for a single day of subscription on Thursday.
The listing arrives as Beijing accelerates a push for semiconductor self-sufficiency amid escalating technology restrictions from the United States. CXMT, the world's fourth-largest maker of dynamic random-access memory chips behind SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics and Micron, is positioned as a national champion in the DRAM market that powers smartphones, servers and computers.
Fund managers are framing the IPO price as a deep discount to global peers. Wu Zhou of Shenzhen Deyuan Investment said he will subscribe, arguing CXMT could eventually reach a market value of 3 trillion yuan ($443.33 billion) and possibly 5 trillion yuan. Eddie Tam, chief investment officer at Hong Kong's Central Asset Investments, described the valuation as "very cheap" even accounting for a two- to four-year technology lag in DRAM and high-bandwidth memory, and said he expects shares to "surge several-fold" on the first day of trading. Both cited an AI-driven demand upcycle and capacity expansion as catalysts.
Not all participants share that conviction. Yao Kai, a fund manager at Shanghai Zhuangyan Private Fund Management, said he will bid "to try luck" but warned the massive offering could drain liquidity from other technology stocks. The concern reflects a broader pattern in China's STAR Market, where blockbuster debuts have occasionally coincided with sector-wide selloffs.
CXMT has not officially confirmed the July 27 listing date, which was disclosed by people familiar with the matter who declined to be identified. The company did not respond to requests for comment. Retail and institutional orders will be collected Thursday, with allocation results determining how much of the predicted first-day pop is captured by lottery winners versus cornerstone investors.
The scale of the valuation bets, from 579 billion yuan at pricing to projections of 3 to 5 trillion yuan, underscores how much of the AI investment narrative is being priced into China's domestic chip supply chain before CXMT has demonstrated sustained profitability at global technology nodes.