Bitmain’s IPO Application Officially Expired, Company Appoints new CEO

The application for an initial public offering (IPO) of Bitmain, the cryptocurrency mining equipment maker on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) has officially expired.

According to the recent update by HKEX, Bitmain’s application has been shifted to a group of dormant applications. Further, it has been designated as lapsed as the period of six months after the company filed the prospectus on Sept 26 has expired. However, if Bitmain still wants to seek the listing, it can file the application again, but the company will have to provide additional financial records that were not included in its initial filing.

According to a listing rule from the HKEX, “the latest financial period reported on by the accountants for a new applicant must not have exceeded more than six months from the date of the filing documents.” The last public filing from Bitmain was nine months ago which only covers the period ending June 30, 2018. The application attracted huge attention in 2018 when Bitmain unveiled ‘eye-popping’ profit growth over the past several years. In the first half of 2018, the mining giant had a net profit of approx US$ 1 billion, after earning a net profit of US$ 1 billion for the year 2017.

Despite such rapid growth, the HKEX was resistant to approve applications from Bitmain and its mining rivals Canaan Creative and Ebang, due to the industry’s volatility. Following the downtrend of the market in 2018, Bitmain suffered a loss of approx US$ 500 million in the third quarter of 2018. Thus, it’s unclear whether Bitmain is contemplating another attempt to go public again anytime soon. But if it does not find a way out to go public, the company may be on the hook to reimburse more than US$ 700 million to its venture capital investors.

New CEO Appointed

There were reports previously that Jihan WU and Micree Zhan were fired from their CEO position, Bitmain has confirmed the two will be stepping down as CEOs.

HaichaoWang, former director of product engineering at Bitmain, has been officially nominated as the CEO of Bitmain. Jihan Wu and Micree Zhan, the former co-CEOs and cofounders of the mining giant, will continue on as the directors.

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