New Hope Liuhe raises $390M share sale, a top-tier China deal, as pig prices sink
What's the deal? China's New Hope Liuhe CoDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has raised US$357.5M in a post-IPO equity round, backed by the Central Enterprise Rural Industry Investment Fund and the Underdeveloped Areas Industrial Development Fund. The Shenzhen-listed company priced the placement at US$0.78 per share, issuing roughly 459 million new shares to 26 institutional investors.
Why now? The raise lands in a brutal stretch for China's hog industry, with pig prices stuck at multi-year lows. New Hope posted a net loss of US$353.4M for the first nine months of 2026, driven largely by falling sale prices and a US$170.5M inventory writedown.
By the numbers: The deal ranks in roughly the 92nd percentile by size among all post-IPO equity rounds in China, from a sample of 1,576. That makes it one of the few financing bright spots in an otherwise loss-making sector.
Where's the money going? About US$250.3M targets biosecurity and digital upgrades at pig farms, while US$105.2M repaid bank debt. Short-term borrowings fell to US$14.8B by the end of September, down 42.09 billion from the start of the year.
The other engine: New Hope's feed business stayed profitable even as hog operations struggled. Nine-month revenue rose 8.94% to US$12.1B, with third-quarter sales up 11.18%.
Expanding abroad: The company is channelling new investment into aquaculture feed and overseas markets, aiming to double aqua-feed sales to 4 million tonnes within three years. New lines in Nigeria, Indonesia, and Cambodia came online late in the third quarter, and two new feed projects in Egypt will lift capacity at its Alexandria base to 520,000 tonnes a year.
What's new in product? New Hope opened a molecular breeding research platform in Wuhan on October 18, controlled by its subsidiary Hubei Xinsheng Houpu. It unveiled the "Xinxiwang Pig 60k" high-density SNP chip, which the company says enables genetic evaluation at the piglet stage and shortens breeding cycles.
What could go wrong? The raise strengthens the balance sheet but does not signal a turnaround in hog farming. With pig prices still low and returns on new investment unproven, cycle risk remains.
The signal: Securing a top-decile equity raise during an industry downturn shows capital still flows to scaled players that can weather the cycle — even as the core business stays in the red.
Read more: sohu.com
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
