Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein announced plans Monday to raise $1.77 billion by selling 280 million shares in its long-awaited IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. File photo by Hannibal Hanschke/EPA
Aug. 24 (UPI) — Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein announced plans Monday to raise $1.77 billion in its long-awaited IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
In a filing to the SEHK, Shein said it will offer nearly 280 million shares with a price range of $6.07 and $6.32 in its Sept. 1 debut, valuing the company at a little under $27 billion. The final price will be fixed on Aug. 31.
The valuation is sharply down from the $100 billion it was valued at in 2020, due to higher costs and a slowdown in the growth of sales, and follows effort to float on the New York, NASDAQ and London stock exchanges in 2023 and 2024 that were abandoned amid roadblocks erected by regulators and lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Analysts said the firm had been hit hard by U.S. President Donald Trump‘s summer 2025 scrapping of the so-called de minimis import tariff exemption on low value packages on which its business model depended, with Shein reporting a $99 million loss in Q1, down from a $395 million profit in the same period in 2025.
The European Union imposed its own flat $3.50 import tax on low value packages coming into its single market, effective July 1, with Britain, another big market for the Chinese online retailers, also expected to implement similar measures to the United States and EU in 2028.
With the Hong Kong stock market’s attention focused on a string of highly sought after AI and chipmaker IPOs, investor enthusiasm for Shein has dwindled along with much of its appeal with consumers under the age of 35 amid the challenge from competition from firms like Temu.
The firm has also had reputational issues with scrutiny over multiple issues from environmental pollution to working conditions in its supply chain, including the possible use of forced labor in its supply chain.
In February, the EU launched an investigation alleging the design of Shein’s app was addictive, a lack of transparency of recommender systems, as well as the sale of illegal products, including “child sexual abuse material.”
Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famed “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on August 28, 1963. The speech galvanized the nation’s civil rights movements and led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. File photo by UPI | License Photo
