When Xiamen Hithium’s Hong Kong IPO filing lapsed last month, it wasn’t Hithium’s first failed IPO; their first failed IPO was in 2023. Nor does it seem like it’s going to be their last. As a company, Hithium has been marked by systemic instability, financial strain, and desperation for capital, all while scrambling to conceal the underlying fragility of its business model. Hithium has been desperately scrambling to raise new capital and seems to fully intend to make another attempt to go public, but the patterns behind its decisions and disclosures raise serious red flags.
According to HKEX records, Hithium filed its latest IPO application in March 2025. By September 2025, the A1 form had quietly terminated, with no offering, no listing, and, most importantly, no access to the $500 million cash injection Hithium had been banking on.
But now it seems Hithium appears to be preparing for another IPO attempt with a clear PR attempt in the last week and no changes to its subsidy-fueled growth, thin margins, and overpromised scale.
Reviewing the Hithium IPO application as an analyst, several items stand out. Their disclosure shows strong revenue growth and rapid scale-up, but it also reveals structural weaknesses, execution risks, and exposure to volatile markets. In 2022, revenue was RMB 3.6 billion. By 2024, that number had grown to 12.9 billion. But the company’s gross margin never broke 18 percent. Scaling without margin is usually an indicator of over-discounting or input cost volatility. In Hithium’s case, it appears to be both.
Then there’s the cash flow. Negative in 2022 and 2023. Barely positive in 2024. The sudden appearance of profitability last year, RMB 287 million, came not from improved operations but from government subsidies. Remove them, and the company remains underwater. Debt is climbing. Liquidity is tight.
Hithium’s current clientele only highlights the risk. Nearly half of 2024’s revenue came from just five customers. The bankruptcy of Powin, Hithium’s largest U.S. buyer, eliminated hundreds of millions in expected income. That is before detailing Hithium’s investment. The collapse of such a large customer alone should have triggered a full revision of the company’s outlook and its IPO materials. But no such revision came. Instead, Hithium’s IPO strategy appears to be. Try again quickly, say little, and hope no one asks any hard questions.
Hithium’s IPO playbook is textbook to anyone who’s studied red-flag IPOs. Sudden bursts of revenue. Margins that don’t scale. Profits that hinge on non-operating line items. Applications that expire. Refiling with little to no change. It’s the kind of pattern that gets glossed over when there’s a bull market or geopolitical tailwinds behind a sector. But when the tide goes out, these tactics show up as liabilities.
The most important question isn’t why Hithium A1 form lapsed, it’s why it insists on trying again so soon, with no material correction to its disclosures or operations. It would not be surprising to see the situation continue to deteriorate, or for the CCP to step in once again to prop up the struggling firm.
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