Shein slashes valuation by 70% for Hong Kong IPO debut

Chinese fast-fashion e-commerce company Shein plans to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange at roughly one-quarter of its valuation from four years ago.

According to CNBC and other media outlets on Monday (local time), Shein said it plans to offer approximately 280 million ordinary shares at HK$47.60 to HK$49.50 per share through its Hong Kong initial public offering. If priced at the top of the range, the company would be valued at $27 billion. The final offer price will be set Monday and trading is scheduled to begin Tuesday.

That valuation represents a drop of more than 70 percent from the $98.2 billion Shein commanded during a private funding round in 2022, and falls short of even half the $64 billion valuation it carried in 2023 and as recently as April last year.

Bloomberg reported that the IPO would give Shein a market capitalization of $25.7 billion to $26.8 billion, placing it just behind Sweden's H&M — valued at around $31 billion — among the world's top fashion and apparel companies.

The steep discount reflects a sharp slowdown in the company's performance. Shein's sales growth fell from 20.7 percent in 2024 to 8 percent last year, and slipped further to just 1.1 percent in the first quarter of this year. The company posted a net loss of $99 million in the first quarter, reversing a net profit of $395 million in the same period a year earlier.

The Hong Kong listing comes after failed attempts in New York and London. In the United States, Shein ran into regulatory obstacles over supply chain transparency and data ownership concerns, while its London listing bid failed to secure approval from Chinese securities regulators.

CNBC noted that investor appetite for Shein has cooled as Hong Kong's IPO pipeline has shifted toward AI and chipmaker listings.

Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, Britain's largest investment platform, told The Guardian that while Shein may still be one of the biggest names in fast fashion, "this IPO will be a harder sell, with many questioning whether the low-price formula still has the power to generate the growth investors want."