China’s Bank Wealth Managers Enter STAR Market IPOs as A-Class Investors, Target Unitree’s Robotics Debut

Wealth Managers Compete for Unitree's Record-Breaking IPO

Unitree Technology, a Chinese humanoid robot company, opened subscription for its IPO on the Shanghai STAR Market on August 10, pricing shares at 150.8 yuan apiece for a total market capitalization of about 610 billion yuan and a price-to-earnings ratio of 219 times.

The high-valuation deal drew bids from six bank wealth management subsidiaries, including Everbright Wealth, Ningbo Wealth, CMB Wealth, China Post Wealth, Minsheng Wealth and Nanyin Wealth, according to an analysis by Beijing Business Daily. This marks the first time China’s bank wealth products have participated as A-class institutional investors in a STAR Market IPO, a status previously reserved for mutual funds.

The new role follows last year’s policy change under a joint directive from the central financial authorities that allowed bank wealth management and insurance asset management firms to be treated equally with mutual funds in IPO allocations, strategic placements and private placements. The move is already bearing fruit: aside from Unitree, wealth managers have also appeared in the recent offerings of Moore Threads and ChangXin Memory Technologies.

The New Rules That Turned Wealth Managers into IPO Contenders

A Regulatory Pivot That Levels the Playing Field

In early 2025, a policy blueprint on encouraging long-term capital inflows explicitly granted bank wealth products the same A-class investor status as mutual funds for IPO subscriptions, private placements and strategic placements. That removed a structural hurdle that had forced most wealth managers to participate indirectly or accept lower allocation priority. The framework is now operational, as the Unitree IPO illustrates, creating a direct channel from trillions of yuan in managed household wealth into the primary equity market.

Why Wealth Managers Flock to High-Valuation Tech IPOs

In a prolonged low interest rate environment where traditional fixed-income returns have narrowed, adding IPO allocations provides a chance to capture a deterministic return boost from first-day pops. Wealth managers are particularly drawn to strategic sectors like humanoid robots that align with official guidance and carry scarcity value. Unitree’s 219x P/E did not deter bidders: most placed orders above the 150.8 yuan offer price, betting on strong secondary market appetite for the “first humanoid robot stock” on the STAR Market. Notable is Ningbo Wealth’s track record—its disclosed data shows an average first-day gain of 278% across 73 IPO participations, with a maximum of 1300%, reinforcing the incentive.

The Capability Divide Among Wealth Managers

Despite the new level playing field, only a few firms are actively seizing the opportunity. Participation in the Unitree IPO was skewed: Everbright deployed 21 products and Ningbo 24, while CMB Wealth, China Post Wealth, Minsheng Wealth and Nanyin Wealth each used just one to four products. This gap reflects the hard infrastructure needed—only mixed-asset and equity-type products qualify for offline bidding, and many wealth managers still lack the equity research teams to independently price frontier technologies. The market is thus clustering around mid-size and large institutions that have invested early in equity capabilities.

From Short-Term Flipping to Patient Capital

Analyst Wu Zewei, quoted in the report, warned that wealth managers risk being trapped in a short-term IPO arbitrage mindset. To genuinely become patient capital for hardtech firms, they must extend product lock-up periods and pursue strategic placements and private placements, not just flip shares on listing day. This requires designing products with longer holding periods—ideally one to two years—and labelling them as science and technology innovation vehicles. The move would match the lengthy R&D and commercialization cycles of companies like Unitree, while also aligning with the policy intent of channelling household savings into long-term equity.

What Wealth Managers Must Do to Turn IPO Access into Long-Term Advantage

For bank wealth management firms aiming to build presence in IPO allocations, several near-term steps stand out:

• Develop dedicated equity research capabilities: The high valuations of companies like Unitree (219x P/E) demand rigorous independent pricing. Firms that lack in-house tech analysis risk mis-pricing and being excluded from future hot deals, especially as competition for allocation intensifies.
• Design longer-hold mixed-asset products: The products used by Ningbo Wealth span 180-day to 2-year hold periods, demonstrating that longer locking facilitates higher allocation. Wealth managers should expand their range of 1-2 year products specifically labelled as "science and technology innovation" to access strategic placement opportunities.
• Leverage first-mover advantage in marketing: The high average first-day gains (278% in Ningbo’s portfolio) create a compelling story for retail investors seeking alternatives to low-yield deposits. Wealth managers that successfully integrate IPO access into daily-open or periodic-open products can attract significant assets.
• Plan for post-lock-up risk: With IPO post-lock-up performance uncertain, managers should build in risk controls and clearly communicate to investors that high returns are not guaranteed, as seen in the high valuation multiples that leave little room for error. Partial early exits via secondary market sales may be appropriate.

For tech startups, the presence of a new class of long-term-oriented institutional investors may ease fundraising and encourage lock-up structures that support protracted R&D cycles.