JHC rebrand sparks 9pc surge in International Housewares Retail shares

International Housewares Retail’s (1373) shares rose after asserting it could rebrand its Hong Kong family items chain, Japan Home Centre, as JHC, and in Chinese, Zhen Hao Cheng, beginning Wednesday, with the primary flagship retailer to open the identical day in Causeway Bay.

Its shares rose as a lot as 9.37 p.c to HK$0.70 on Tuesday after the announcement. The retail firm was listed on the Main Board in September 2013 at a worth of HK$2.81. At the time, its market capitalization reached HK$2.02 billion. Its retail tranche in its preliminary public providing was oversubscribed 145 occasions – the second most oversubscribed IPO since 2012.

The retailer mentioned the rebrand goals to adapt to structural adjustments in Hong Kong’s retail sector after the pandemic, the broader adoption of e-commerce, and rising northbound spending by native customers. The firm mentioned it’s repositioning JHC as a “one-stop lifestyle platform” serving various communities throughout Hong Kong and Macau.

As the pioneer of the “ten-dollar store”, the retailer recorded HK$1.75 billion in income and HK$143 million in web revenue within the monetary yr 2014 ending in April. Its shares additionally reached their highest at HK$4.22 in March 2014.

The retailer was a serious high-yield defensive inventory between 2020 and 2021 given its low valuation, steady dividend funds, and excessive earnings. Its share worth was buying and selling at almost HK$3 in mid-to-late 2021.

However, after 2022, as consumption normalized following the pandemic, value pressures intensified, and authorities pandemic subsidies had been decreased, the corporate’s share worth step by step declined to between HK$2.5 and HK$3. In 2023, its shares fell to round HK$1.6.