Shein’s three-year IPO delay cost it the ‘golden time’ to go public

Shein won Beijing’s approval for a Hong Kong listing after it publicly embraced the Chinese roots it spent years playing down. Now investors are questioning whether that blessing can carry a $40-billion-plus valuation for a company whose growth engine has stalled.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission approved the listing early this month, after Shein’s attempts at going public in New York and London failed. The company’s filing on Sunday gave investors a closer look at the pressure facing the online fast-fashion retailer — higher costs, slowing growth, and mounting regulatory scrutiny in its biggest markets.

Shein’s revenue grew 8% to $41.8 billion in 2025, decelerating from 20.7% growth a year earlier. In the first quarter of 2026, the company swung to a $99 million loss after the U.S. removed an import-duty exemption on small packages and the company booked a hefty one-time accounting charge.

“The company has missed the golden time to list,” said William Ma, chief investment officer at GROW Investment Group.

Investors and consumers were no longer excited by the ultra-fast fashion retailer as they once did, said Shaun Rein, managing director at China Market Research Group: “By waiting, they missed the golden windows of opportunity.”

Shein, known for selling $5 dresses and $10 jeans with a presence in about 160 countries, is under pressure to flatten its valuation to $30 billion, according to Bloomberg, a far cry from the nearly $100 billion it commanded in a 2022 fundraising round, and below the $64 billion of 2024.

Even after the markdown, “that valuation is still demanding,” Ma said. It represents roughly 19 to 25 times fiscal 2025 earnings, he said, while peers such as PDD trade at 9 times and established consumer names in Hong Kong at around 11.

Analysts are increasingly valuing the one-time tech-focused supply-chain disruptor as a pure clothing retailer, grappling with slowing growth and sharp declines in profitability.

The company is “transitioning from a high-growth, technology-enabled fast-fashion platform to a mature global apparel retailer facing structurally slower growth and sustained margin pressure,” said Lenny Zephirin, principal and analyst at The Zephirin Group.

He expects its post-listing market capitalization to settle in the high-$20 billion to low-$30 billion range.

Shein did not respond to CNBC’s request for comments.

The Hong Kong stock market Shein is entering has also moved on. “The Shein appetite has gone. It no longer exists,” Zephirin said of an IPO pipeline dominated by AI and chip listings. “The appetite right now is AI, semiconductors, memory chips, storage, cloud infrastructure—and Shein does not offer it.”

Founded in Nanjing, Shein moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2022, built a global brand identity and pursued Western exchanges only to see Beijing block its…