Retailer Miniso, which went public in New York in 2020, made its debut on the HKEX on Wednesday at HK$13.8 (US$1.76) and closed at 13.04 on the day.
The company previously said it had gone back to Hong Kong as it faced delisting in the US. YE Guofu, the founder of Miniso, is already shifting focus to his new toy business. He wants Top Toy, a subsidiary of Miniso founded in 2020, to go public in the next three years.
Top Toy’s GMV last year was 374 million yuan. By the end of March this year, it had 92 stores in China, 88 of them franchisees. Among all 4,600 toys it has on offer in the stores, 70 percent are not original, which poses problems. Pop Mart, the leading toy retailer in China, owned the IP of 57.5 percent of its toys last year, up from 39 percent a year before. Its revenue last year also went up to 4.5 billion yuan, a 78 percent increase.
Top Toy is aware of the issue, the money raised from the HK listing will be used for product R&D. But for now, the 240 million yuan Top Toy brought in last year accounted for only 4 percent of Miniso’s revenue.
