The company for the world-famous Smok vaping brand is likely to open an initial public offering in Hong Kong.

SHENZHEN/HONG KONG — The maker of Smok, Shenzhen IVPS Technology CO. Limited, announced that it will be offering an IPO in Hong Kong in an effort to raise at least $500 million as soon as 2022. At least, that’s what people are familiar with the matter told Bloomberg reporter Vinicy Chan, via a report on August 23.

IVPS was founded in 2010. It began developing the world-famous Smok brand vape kits. The devices are used by well over 80 million via distributors in countries from France, to Kuwait, to the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

“Smok is an international first-class e-cigarette brand, which has the e-cigarette whole category products from entry lever to ultimate level,” reads a statement from the vaping brand’s website. “It is featured in the high-end markets with stable product performance, excellent quality and good reviews.”

Despite the announcement for IPO, regulators in China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposed a larger draft regulation that would apply the same rules of the conventional tobacco industry to the electronic cigarette segment. According to Chan in the Bloomberg report, the Chinese government’s regulatory approach is to “regulate production and marketing of new types of tobacco products and prevent false advertising and quality issues, the document said, without giving further details.”

The proposal aims to “enhance e-cigarette supervision, regulating e-cigarette production and operation, as well as mitigating the risks in e-cigarette product safety control and misleading advertising,” reports analysts from ECigIntelligence.com.

“Any enforced restructuring of the Chinese e-cigarette market will have major repercussions on a large and growing industry. ECigIntelligence believes the Chinese domestic market is worth $1.3bn and forecasts a constant increase in the coming years, but it is yet to be seen what effect a new regulatory approach may have,” analysts note.

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