Fast-fashion retailer Shein is scheduled for a listing committee hearing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Thursday, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Monday. The hearing follows the China Securities Regulatory Commission granting Shein approval on Friday, July 10 to proceed with its Hong Kong IPO – the removal of the most significant remaining obstacle in the company’s effort to go public. Shein plans to issue up to 341.6 million shares, representing approximately 8% of its total. Sources told Reuters that the company could target a listing in September or October at a valuation of $40 billion to $50 billion. Shein did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. YourNewsClub views the CSRC approval date – Friday, July 10 – as the more commercially significant moment than the Monday hearing announcement: the CSRC sign-off required sign-off from the top levels of the Communist Party, and Beijing had held back that approval for approximately a year after Shein confidentially filed its Hong Kong application in July 2025, suggesting the clearance reflects a political-level decision to proceed rather than a routine regulatory determination.
Shein was founded in China in 2012, grew from $3 billion in revenue in 2019 to $38 billion in 2024, and attempted a US IPO in 2023 that was blocked by congressional opposition. It pivoted to London, securing FCA approval for a draft prospectus in March 2025, but the CSRC withheld its approval over reported disagreements about Xinjiang supply chain disclosures. Hong Kong, a venue Beijing has encouraged for overseas listings, represents a strategic compromise. The targeted $40 to $50 billion valuation is a 50-60% discount to Shein’s 2022 private market peak of $100 billion, driven by a 40% net profit decline in 2024 as US and EU de minimis tariff changes compressed margins on its cross-border shipping model.
Shein surpassed H&M’s revenue in 2023 and is projected to overtake Inditex in 2024 revenue terms. Its AI-driven micro-batch production model remains structurally differentiated. The company’s investors include Brookfield, General Atlantic, Mubadala, Saudi Arabia’s PIF, and SoftBank. YourNewsClub flags the $40 to $50 billion valuation range as the number that reflects how fully the market has already priced in the US tariff impact, the margin compression, and the regulatory detour – whether the final pricing lands at the upper or lower end will depend on how convincingly Shein’s management addresses labour practice and supply chain transparency scrutiny during the listing committee hearing process.
Once the listing committee clears Shein, the company can proceed to investor roadshows and bookbuilding. Hong Kong’s IPO market has been recovering in 2026, with approximately $44 billion raised in the first half – the highest level in five years. Shein’s listing at the upper end of the targeted range would be among the largest Hong Kong listings of the decade.
Alex Reinhardt, who tracks financial systems and settlement infrastructure through digital protocols, places the tariff impact: “Shein’s margin compression in 2024 was driven by the US ending de minimis exemptions. The EU’s parallel measure effective July 2026 adds a second major market where the cross-border model faces structural headwinds. A $40 to $50 billion valuation is implicitly a claim that Shein can adapt faster than those tariffs reshape the economics of ultra-fast fashion.” Owen Radner, who models digital infrastructure as energy-information transport systems, draws the data infrastructure angle: “Shein’s competitive advantage is not primarily its logistics – it is the real-time consumer behaviour dataset that drives its micro-batch production algorithm. That dataset is what investors are valuing when they accept a premium over conventional fast fashion multiples.” YourNewsClub tracks Thursday’s HKEX listing committee hearing as the next procedural step most immediately relevant to whether the September or October IPO window remains achievable.
The hearing will require Shein to answer questions from the listing committee on the issues that blocked its earlier listings: supply chain transparency, labour conditions, and how the company discloses risks related to its manufacturing network. Those questions have not changed since 2023; what has changed is the regulatory venue, and Hong Kong’s standards on those specific disclosures are less demanding than New York’s or London’s.
Shein founder Sky Xu has maintained an unusually low public profile, rarely giving interviews and having little online presence. An IPO at up to $50 billion requires substantially more public engagement from the company’s leadership. Your News Club counts the investor roadshow, whenever it begins, as the first sustained public presentation of Shein’s business that public market investors and journalists will have access to, making it the most commercially revealing period in the company’s history.