Hong Kong | Tutoring firm Bexcellent soars 22 percent in debut

Bexcellent Group Holdings Ltd., whose top tutor earns more than HKD40 million (USD5.1 million) a year, surged as much as 34 percent on the first day of trading in Hong Kong.

The provider of tutoring services to Hong Kong secondary school students was so popular that individual investors placed orders for about 289 times the stock initially available to them. Bexcellent raised HKD135 million in its initial public offering after pricing shares near the top of a marketed range. That’s a contrast to Xiaomi Corp., which priced its initial public offering at the low end two weeks ago.

Shares of Bexcellent closed at HKD1.32 for a 22 percent gain from its IPO price of HKD1.08.

Courses and products provided by Bexcellent’s top five tutors accounted for more than half of its total revenue last year, the company said in its IPO prospectus. Remuneration payable to the top tutor was HKD43.4 million in the year through July 2017, the document showed. That’s more than Bexcellent’s net income of HKD34.1 million in the same period.

Rival firm Hong Kong Education International Investments Ltd. ran a newspaper advertisement in 2015, offering to pay Bexcellent’s top tutor Lam Yat Yan an annual salary of HKD85 million. Shares of Hong Kong Education have plunged 97 percent since its 2011 IPO, while Lam has remained a tutor and shareholder of Bexcellent. Fox Hu, Bloomberg