Ready, set, IPO

Grab your pitchbooks and ring that bell Intriguer, because autumn is shaping up to be a wild season for public listings, starting with…

• 🇨🇳 Shein

If you thought Odysseus had a hard time actually getting where he wanted to go, wait till you hear about Shein. 

Founded in 2008 by entrepreneur Xu Yangtian, China’s fast fashion giant has filed for a 1 September initial public offering in Hong Kong, where it’s hoping to raise a cool $1.8B at a~$25B valuation.  

But this isn’t Shein’s first attempt. It’s not even Shein’s second! 

In fact, the firm was planning a US debut back in 2023, but that broke at the seams like a $4.99 Shein polyester tuxedo, amid political pressure and forced labour jitters.

So Shein took its business to London for what seemed like the UK’s biggest-ever IPO. And much like Shein’s $8.70 leather jacket right out of the vacuum-sealed pack, it initially seemed like a great fit: support from lawmakers, the regulators, and even preliminary approval from the Financial Conduct Authority in 2025!

Buuuut the synthetic coating started to peel away once Beijing itself refused to bless the match, irked by the firm distancing itself from China, plus prospectus language that seemed to acknowledge Xinjiang suppliers needed “de-risking”.

And so it was back to square one — or Exchange Square in Hong Kong to be precise, where regulators are more forgiving and geopolitical headwinds more shielded.

But much like a $6.20 Shein hoodie that shrinks aggressively in the first wash, the firm’s valuation has now crumpled from its $100B peak in 2022 to today’s mere ~$25B. Why? The pandemic e-spending spree has tapered, Western markets are closing the de minimis tax loophole for small packages, competition from Temu has heated up (like that $5.80 fleece near an open flame), and consumer enthusiasm for fast fashion has cooled (like Shein’s $4.80 ‘thermal’ leggings in actual winter).

So are investors still hungry for Shein, or like that $8.99 Barbiecore pink mini, is it already out of fashion by the time it even arrives? We’ll know in September. 

• 🇺🇸 Anthropic 

Now over to the US, where AI darling Anthropic is gunning to dethrone SpaceX as the biggest IPO on record: $100B raise, $2T valuation (versus Elon’s $86B / $1.77T). 

The pioneer is already printing $65B in annualised revenue, up 7x from last year yet somehow still a long way from a $2T market cap. It’s filling the gap with a pitch flagging its total addressable market could one day exceed… America’s entire GDP!

Fairy-tale or not, history’s biggest pure-AI listing is shaping up as a massive stress test: a soft landing risks whacking not only Anthropic’s big shareholders (think Amazon, Alphabet, Salesforce), but beyond — AI-exposed mega-caps now make up 40%+ of the S&P 500, and US stocks make up 70%+ of the MSCI World.

Maybe that’s why rival OpenAI — regulatory paperwork loaded — is happy to let someone else test the waters first? The formal investor roadshow is due imminently.

• 🇳🇬 Dangote Refinery

Now let’s wrap in Nigeria, where an oil refinery is planning to go public as soon as October. But as accurate as that opener is, it’s also woefully incomplete because…

• The Lagos asset is already Africa’s largest crude oil processing plant

• Once expanded, it’ll be the world’s largest single-train refinery, and

• The ~$50B targeted valuation will eclipse every single publicly traded Sub-Saharan company outside South Africa… combined.

But even that doesn’t quite capture it: the asset is majority owned by Africa’s richest man (the eponymous Mr Dangote), who’s already helped Nigeria (an OPEC member) 7x its seaborne oil shipments since 2023! This is single-handedly helping curb the fuel-import forex drain on Africa’s most populous nation, providing the kind of macro stability you need to finance long-term development.

And he’s planning to take this show on the road, via a near-identical refinery on Kenya’s coast, offering East African governments a collective 30% stake. In addition to stumping up some cash, those capitals also commit to buying the plant’s offtake, and potentially to reject the dumping of cheap energy imports from Russia.

There are risks of course — macro, political, environmental, and project blowouts.

But the whole thing is sparking hopes of an East Asian-style development model gaining momentum across Africa: protect, scale, export, then recycle those profits into a new wave of national champions and productive assets.

Three very different bets, in three very different sectors, on three very different continents. The market gets to vote from next month.

Sound even smarter:

• Since we’re talking IPOs… shares in China’s Unitree, a leading humanoid robot maker, slumped 45% just days after its stellar IPO saw them surge 460%. We wrote about China’s soaring robotics sector here.