Chow Tai Fook, a decades-old Chinese jewelry retailer with 1,400 stores, has hired seven banks to underwrite its forthcoming IPO in Hong Kong,it was reported late Monday. The main underwriters are to be Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs Group, HSBC Holdings and JPMorgan Chase. Chow Tai Fook has also engaged Citigroup, Credit Suisse Group and UBS to underwrite the offer.
The mainland chain, founded by Chow Chi Yuen in 1929 in Guangzhou and now controlled by his billionaire son-in-law Cheng Yu-Tung, plans massive expansion, mostly on the mainland, and currently competes head-to-head with other domestic jewelers and foreign firms such as Tiffany.