WHITE goods manufacturer Qingdao Haier Co is looking at making an offering of D-shares in Frankfurt.

As part of a cooperation agreement between China and Germany, a new category of D-shares (D for Deutschland) is going to be created. This follows other offshore shares such as H-shares and red-chips in Hong Kong, S-chips in Singapore and N-shares in New York.

D-shares will be traded on the China Europe International Exchange AG (CEINEX), which is a joint venture between the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), Deutsche Börse (DBAG) and China Financial Futures Exchange (CFFEX). CEINEX was set up with the blessing of Beijing and Berlin in 2015.

CEINEX currently trades renminbi products such as bonds and exchange traded funds, and is looking for some suitably high-profile companies to get the D-shares project underway with a sizeable offering.

Qingdao Haier would be a good candidate, given its size and global presence. It is the world's largest manufacturer of white goods such as refrigerators, and has 54 overseas factories and nine foreign R&D centres.

In 2016 it acquired GE Appliances, and in 2012 acquired the white goods division of Japanese company Sanyo. Total revenues in 2017 were 241.9 billion yuan (US$38 billion), up 20% on the previous year.

Following media reports about a possible listing, which reportedly could involve a one-billion-euro share offering, Qingdao Haier Co Ltd, the listed unit of Haier Group Corp, put out a statement. It said that it is studying the feasibility of issuing D shares, but thus far has not hired any professional institute to deal with the issuance, and there is no internal decision about it.

A share offering would have to be approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), and the company's prospectus would have to be signed off by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).

Photo: Haier Group