Initial public offerings or IPOs are known as a great way for investors to get great returns in a relatively short time. On average, they can bring investors 40% within the first 3 months. Once the initial funding stages are out of the way, IPOs can be a great way for companies to sell their shares on the open market and raise more capital to continue their growth.After two record-breaking years of IPO activity in the US, with 480 IPOs in 2020 and 1035 in 2021, the number of companies that went public dropped dramatically in 2022. Some IPOs have been postponed or even canceled. There is some exciting stuff happening in the IPO space right now.Unless you follow the current IPO space or you hang out on investment subreddits, it’s unlikely you’ve asked “is AMTD publicly traded?” In fact, it’s one of the most interesting IPOs that happened this year. Read on to find out about AMTD stock IPO and all the important information about AMTD IPO date and price.
AMTD History
AMTD Digital is a fintech company based in Hong Kong. It is a subsidiary of a financial services group AMTD Group also based Hong Kong. AMTD Digital was founded in 2019 by former UBS investment banker Calvin Choi. The firm’s parent business is called AMTD Idea, which owns 88.8% percent of AMTD Digital’s shares, and both are ultimately controlled by AMTD Group. Choi is the chairman of all three.
AMTD Digital provides a digital platform with financial, media, content, marketing. The company offers digital banking and insurance platforms for individuals and small and medium-sized businesses.
The company generates revenue from fees and commissions from its Digital Financial Services and SpiderNet Ecosystem Solutions.
The company has been growing rapidly and became profitable, which was enough for the management to ask themselves, “when is AMTD going public?” So in 2021 AMTD Digital filed for an IPO.
Read on to find out about AMTD IPO 2022 and other key info.
AMTD Public Listing Key Data and IPO Date
AMTD IPO Date: July 15, 2022
Ticker: HKD
Exchange: NYSE
IPO stock price: $7.80
Valuation at IPO: $3 billion
Market cap (9/8/22): $33 billion
CEO: Mark Lo
Category: Financial stocks
AMTD Digital launched its IPO on the NYSE on July 15, 2022 with the stock symbol HKD.
The company raised nearly $125 million in the IPO, offering 16 million American depositary shares. The AMTD Digital IPO price was set at 7.80 pre-IPO and the first trade was at $13, 66% above the initial offering price.
Just two weeks after their IPO date the stock price suddenly surged 21,000% from its initial offering price, reaching $2,555, a spike even the company could not explain. Perhaps retail investors played a big part in this because the IPO was picked up on investing communities on Reddit etc. Very likely that the big players took part in this as well.
This price gave AMTD Digital a market cap of over $310 billion, making it the 14th largest company in the world, larger than Bank of America, Coca-Cola, and Goldman Sachs.
Chairman of AMTD Digital Calvin Choi, who owns a 20% stake in AMTD’s parent company AMTD IDEA, reached a net worth of $36.8 billion when the AMTD stock price spiked.
So What About Investing Now?
IPOs are one of the most exciting tools investors have to get great returns in a short time. The reality is, however, a lot of the time the price goes back down and the crucial thing is knowing when to sell. Sometimes IPOs max out within the first day or several days and sometimes suddenly grow with no apparent reason.
In AMTD Digital’s case, even the company’s management could not explain what happened on July 15 that boosted the price so much. Possibly it was just folks on Reddit but then maybe a lot of other folks.
AMTD Digital IPO shows that magic can happen to IPOs in 2022. Another Hong Kong company, Magic Empire Global (MEGL) also had its share of magic when its stock price went up 2,300% above its IPO price.
Now that AMTD has become a meme stock, its meme’s status is likely to remain and therefore it doesn’t matter what happens to the company that much.
AMTD Digital is facing a probe from Hong Kong regulators over previous deals. This enquiry predates the IPO and an appeal has been filed by Calvin Choi. So only time will show what’s going to happen, but surely the result can greatly affect the stock price considering its volatility and meme status.
The hard truth is while it’s fun to play a bit with investments like this, it’s hard to guess which one will do well and when. If you’re into more risky investments, don’t go over 5-10% of your overall investment budget.
What we see from the current market is stock picking and IPOs are not as effective as having a diversified portfolio of stocks and ETFs. Check out Thematic Trading Fractional (TTFs) from Gainy. These are curated stock collections around a specific theme that you like or believe in or an investment strategy like Monthly Dividend Portfolio or Inflation-Proof Stocks.
Check out our IPO section to look at other scheduled IPOs. If you want to find companies that match your interests, investment goals and portfolio, try Gainy for some great IPO investment ideas, as well as established blue-chip companies and a variety of other assets.
FAQ
Is AMTD a public company?
Yes, the AMTD stock IPO date was August 5, 2022. That’s when the Hong-Kong based financial services company went public and was listed on the Nasdaq with the stock symbol HKD.
Is AMTD Digital a SPAC?
AMTD Digital launched a traditional IPO instead of merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). These are black-check companies created for the purpose of merging with a company to help go public. This makes the IPO process cheaper and easier but has its downsides like giving up equity and there are claims that they are structured to benefit the shareholders over the business. There was a bit of a boom of SPACs in 2020-2021, but many companies that went public this way didn’t do very well.
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