Billionaire rides cooking oil dominance to record China IPO

A customer looks at bottles of Wilmar International Ltd. Arawana brand cooking oil at a supermarket in Shanghai. - Filepic

KUOK Khoon Hong has pulled off a remarkable second act. The billionaire sold shares of his China business in the biggest ever initial public offering on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, thanks to the most popular cooking oil brand in the country.

Yihai Kerry Arawana Holdings Co.’s share price more than doubled in its first-day on the ChiNext board after the IPO raised 13.9 billion yuan ($2 billion).

Its namesake cooking oil with a Golden Dragon Fish logo has been a staple of Chinese kitchens for decades and fueled demand 3,499 times the amount of shares offered to retail investors online.