People walk past a store of Chinese retailer MINISO Group in Beijing, China Sept. 13, 2021. Photo by Reuters
Miniso said on Friday it will spin off its brand Top Toy and list it in Hong Kong, riding a wave of investor enthusiasm for Chinese toymakers and highlighting the city’s renewed status as a global fundraising hotspot.
UBS, JP Morgan, and CLSA are overall coordinators of Top Toy’s initial public offering, Guangzhou-based Miniso said.
The business, which will remain a subsidiary of Miniso post spin-off, focuses on pop culture-inspired collectible toys. Miniso had said in June it was assessing a potential spin-off of Top Toy, signaling growing confidence in the brand’s standalone appeal.
Launched in late 2020 with just nine stores across five Chinese cities, Top Toy has since expanded to 293 locations as of June, including a push into international markets since the December quarter of 2024.
Top Toy’s listing comes in the wake of the massive rise of Chinese toymaker Pop Mart International Group, whose ugly-cute Labubu dolls have become popular across the world.
The spin-off and subsequent listing highlights Hong Kong’s role as the leading offshore fundraising hub for Chinese companies, especially as U.S. lawmakers threaten to delist Chinese firms from American stock exchanges.
Hong Kong, fueled by the influx of Chinese companies, has emerged as the top global bourse by volume of IPOs and second listings combined so far this year, overtaking its biggest rival – the New York Stock Exchange, according to data from LSEG.
Chinese autonomous driving developer Momenta was also mulling shifting its IPO to Hong Kong from New York, Reuters reported earlier in the day.
The spin-off and subsequent listing would increase Top Toy’s operational and financial transparency, and a standalone entity would enable to make the business more appealing to investors, Miniso said.
