Huobi Quietly Buying Off Shares of Public Firm

Huobi is looking to acquire the shares of a Hong Kong-registered public firm, and if their efforts prove to be successful, this could allow Huobi to go public through a reverse buyout.

On Aug. 21, Pantronics Holdings filed shareholding disclosures to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, in which the public company was transferring over 221 million of its regular shares to Li Lin, the chairman of Huobi Group, through a number of the exchange’s branches.

Considering the amount of shares involved, Li will eventually own 73.73 percent of Pantronics, making him the biggest shareholder. According to the filing, the transaction has a price of HK$2.72 (or $0.35) in average per share, totalling up to a sum worth $77 million.

If the deal goes through, Huobi could be in the position to take over the public company and then enter the secondary financial market, a procedure called a reverse takeover.

Pantronics is an electronics manufacturer which was founded in 1990 and in 2016 went public. The company has so far not released any official announcement concerning the deal and its status, or any if a corporate restructure is in discussions.

A Huobi spokesperson revealed that the crypto exchange is pending to be approved and confirmed by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. That’s probably why the company can’t make any comment regarding the situation for the time being.

After Pantronics made the first notice, they stopped all trading of its shares on the exchange starting with Aug. 22, “pending the release of an announcement relating to a possible offer to be made … on Takeovers and Mergers, which is inside information in nature,” said the company at that time.

Chinese media outlet Gelonghui first reported on Monday that Pantonics transferred 73.73 percent of its shares to Li.

After the announcement was made, the exchange’s own token- Huobi Token, saw an increase of eight percent and currently has a six percent growth in the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Huobi is not the first Chinese private firm in the cryptocurrency industry to apply for initial public offerings (IPOs) in Hong Kong. Bitcoin miner manufacturers Canaan Creative and Ebang have also jumped on the IPO bandwagon.

Also, Bitmain, the biggest ASIC producer, has been reportedly been considering an $18 billion IPO in Hong Kong.