Hong Kong IPO Allotment Calculator

In a Hong Kong public offer you apply for a number of lots and the full subscription cash is frozen up front. After the offer closes, HKEX runs a ballot and publishes an allotment table showing how many lots each application tier receives. You only pay for the lots you are actually allotted; the cash for unallocated lots is refunded to your account, usually before listing day. This calculator turns that table into the concrete numbers you care about — lots held, cash refunded, and capital tied up.

Hong Kong public offers usually split the retail tranche into two pools. Pool A (甲组) is for applications up to HK$5 million in value, and Pool B (乙组) is for larger applications above that. Each pool gets roughly half the public shares. Pool A favours small retail applicants — when a deal is heavily oversubscribed, a clawback shifts more shares to Pool A so small applicants are more likely to receive at least one guaranteed lot, while Pool B allotment moves closer to proportional and gets diluted at very high oversubscription.

For most Hong Kong IPOs the refund for unallocated lots is processed shortly after the allotment results are announced and typically reaches your account on or just before the listing day. If you applied through a broker using margin financing, the broker usually nets the refund against the financed amount first. Exact timing varies by broker, so check your platform notice — but the cash shown as "Cash Refunded" here is the amount that should come back to you.

With margin, your broker lends most of the subscription cash and you only put up the own-capital portion. The interest is charged on the financed amount for the application window regardless of allotment, so it is a sunk cost even on the lots you did not receive. When the refund is processed, the broker typically returns the financed portion to the loan and the own-capital portion to you. Turn on the margin toggle above to see the interest cost folded into the listing-day net profit/loss.

It depends on how hot the deal is. For heavily oversubscribed IPOs, the clawback guarantees small Pool A applicants roughly one lot, so applying for many extra lots in Pool A mostly just freezes more cash for the same outcome — spreading applications across separate eligible accounts is often more efficient. For lightly subscribed deals, applying for more lots genuinely raises your expected allotment. Use the estimate mode here with the expected ratio, and the subscription probability calculator below to compare strategies before you apply.

The allotment ratio is the share of applicants in a given tier who receive at least one lot, published by HKEX in the formal allotment results after every public offer (and republished by most broker apps). For a hot deal the lowest Pool A tiers might show a single-digit percentage, while higher tiers approach a guaranteed lot. Enter your tier ratio in estimate mode to gauge a likely outcome before the official table is out, then switch to confirm mode and type your exact allotted lots once results are announced.

The headline allotment, refund and capital figures are based on the offer price and the lots you hold, before fees. The listing-day profit table excludes brokerage commission, the HKEX trading fee, SFC transaction levy, stamp duty and any IPO handling fee, so your real net will be slightly lower. For a precise cost breakdown across moomoo, IBKR, Tiger and others, use the broker fee calculator linked in the related tools below.

Common brokers for Hong Kong IPO applications include moomoo, Tiger Brokers, Longbridge, Futu and IBKR. Most support online subscription, optional margin financing, and automatic refund of unallocated subscription cash. moomoo and Tiger are popular with retail investors for low fees and straightforward margin. You normally need a valid identity document and an HKD-capable account. Compare them in the broker comparison guide linked below before you apply.