Parent Firm of DaaS Provider Bear Rental Cleared for Hong Kong IPO

Device as a service (DaaS) provider Bear Rental’s parent company, LX Technology, passed a hearing for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on October 7, with Haitong International Securities Group serving as the exclusive sponsor.

Founded in 2004, LX Technology started out as a provider of computer assembly services and a merchant of used PCs. It launched short-term and long-term computer rental projects in 2008 and 2013 respectively, as well as providing IT technical services to enterprises. In 2017, it began to develop upstream suppliers and customer networks for obsolete equipment. In 2018, it launched SaaS-based equipment management services and a new brand called Bear Rental.

Bear Rental currently provides a package of digital DaaS solutions including equipment subscriptions, IT technology subscriptions, SaaS-based equipment management services and equipment recycling.

From 2019 to 2021, and in the first half of 2022, the number of registered enterprise customers of LX Technology was 801, 2,152, 4,638 and 6,611, respectively.

From 2019 to 2021, LX Technology’s revenue was 500 million yuan ($70 million), 1.022 billion yuan and 1.330 billion yuan respectively, while the adjusted EBITDA was 37 million yuan, 165 million yuan and 224 million yuan, respectively. In the first half of 2022, its revenue rose 59.1% year-on-year to 854 million yuan, while the adjusted EBITDA rose 15.4% year-on-year to 128 million yuan.

Since its establishment, LX Technology has received investment from JD.com, Tencent, Lenovo, Fortune Capital, Oriental Fortune Capital, Great Wall Fund, and Shenzhen High-tech Investment. Before the IPO, JD.com and Tencent held 13.22% and 1.88% stakes in LX Technology, respectively. Li Jing, Vice President of JD.com and President of JD Retail’s Enterprise Business Unit, served as a non-executive director of LX Technology.

As enterprises continue to invest in IT equipment and deepen office flexibility, the equipment lifecycle management market in China is expected to witness more rapid growth in coming years, growing to 138.2 billion yuan in 2026, at a CAGR of 32.0% from 2021 to 2026, according to China Insights Consultancy. In addition, by revenue, the market size of the equipment recycling business in China has increased from 1.8 billion yuan in 2017 to 6.8 billion yuan in 2021, and it is expected to reach about 26.1 billion yuan in 2026.

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Hu Zuoxiong, the founder of LX Technology, said in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald that the firm’s recycling business is relatively stable because large companies such as Tencent and Alibaba have high requirements for the use of equipment. Their devices tend to be phased out about every four years, while at ByteDance it is about three years. Subscription services will be biased toward small and medium enterprises, which will gradually overtake recycling.