HK$255 billion in post-IPO lockup shares expires across HKEX-listed names in July, per Bloomberg (the predictable arithmetic of cornerstone-heavy listing structures now standard since 2023, where the 55 percent median cornerstone allocation on tech offerings per SFC post-listing data pushes free floats below MSCI's 15 percent ownership-room threshold in most of these names). Southbound Stock Connect has been the dominant marginal buyer through Q1 and Q2 2026. Connect buyers cannot short.

So the July supply is not the problem. The problem is the bid: a market where passive allocation desks have been excluded by the same free-float constraints that got these companies listed, and where the Southbound inflows that replaced Western institutional ownership track policy signals, not expiry calendars. The cornerstones can read that calendar too. AIA's Hong Kong wealth management division and Prudential's HK distribution desk both hired senior mainland-facing relationship managers this week, per The Business Times, because their HNW clients hold the non-cornerstone tranches of these IPOs and need a liquidity model that accounts for a bid thinner than the one implied at pricing. The SFC's Q2 post-listing disclosure window, which shows whether any cornerstone holder filed for early-release from the lockup, closes July 31.