Beike Jumps After First-Quarter Revenue Beat, $1 Billion Buyback Program

By Clarence Leong

Shares of KE Holdings Inc., commonly known as Beike, jumped Wednesday morning in Hong Kong after the company posted a quarterly revenue beat and announced a $1 billion buyback program.

The Chinese provider of housing transactions and services' shares rose as much as 15% early in the Hong Kong session, and were last 13% higher at HK$35.05. Beike's American depositary shares gained 17% overnight to US$13.40, paring year-to-date losses to 33%.

The stock gains come after the company posted first-quarter results on Tuesday. It swung to a 618.0 million yuan (US$92.6 million) loss from CNY1.06 billion profit, while revenue fell 39% to CNY12.55 billion, but still beat a FactSet-derived consensus estimate of CNY12.20 billion.

Beike also proposed buying back up to $1 billion ADSs over a 12-month period.

"The repurchases are expected to be carried out as soon as legally permissible" after shareholders' approval is obtained, it said Tuesday.

The stock's strong performance comes despite the company warning of a tough quarter ahead. It forecast that revenue will drop 57%-59% from a year earlier in the second quarter due to Covid-19 measures in China hurting operations and the potential impact of recent policies for the real-estate sector.

Write to Clarence Leong at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 31, 2022 22:58 ET (02:58 GMT)

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