Opinion: Some China Assets Can List in U.S. Unobstructed Amid Geopolitical Divide

For more than two decades, global limited partners (LPs) and their China-based U.S. dollar-denominated fund managers flourished, as they relied heavily on U.S. IPOs to exit their investments in China. However, this trend, marked by significant LP commitments and high-profile U.S. listings of Chinese tech firms, was upended in 2021.

Since July 2021, the presence of Chinese tech companies in the U.S. IPO market has all but vanished due to geopolitical tensions and a shift in Beijing’s regulatory stance, making overseas listings harder and a riskier prospect for investors. Both the LPs and China funds were forced to seek alternative ways to exit investments. However, for China-domiciled assets, this is a difficult endeavor.