(Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. underwrote Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd.’s Hong Kong listing despite opposition from US lawmakers, given that Washington hasn’t placed sanctions on the Chinese battery maker, Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Can Frank Gehry’s ‘Grand LA’ Make Downtown Feel Like a Neighborhood? Chicago’s O’Hare Airport Seeks Up to $4.3 Billion of Muni Debt NJ Transit Makes Deal With Engineers, Ending Three-Day Strike

“If we thought it was wrong, we wouldn’t do it,” Dimon said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Thursday at JPMorgan’s Global China Summit in Shanghai.

CATL, as the electric-vehicle battery maker is known, debuted its Hong Kong shares this week in the world’s biggest listing of the year, raising $5.2 billion.

“The government did not sanction CATL,” Dimon said. “There are people who didn’t want us to do it for a bunch of reasons, and they may have somewhat legitimate reasons. But I think the government should decide what to do.”

The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party had sent Dimon and Brian Moynihan, the CEO of fellow CATL underwriter Bank of America Corp., letters in April urging them to withdraw from the listing, citing the company’s inclusion on a Pentagon blacklist alleging links to the Chinese military.

CATL denies having military links. Just this week, founder and Chairman Robin Zeng told Bloomberg News that the “accusation is completely groundless.” He also said Dimon wrote him several letters expressing his support for CATL.

CATL’s Hong Kong shares were down about 2% Thursday afternoon at around HK$330. That’s significantly higher than the listing price of HK$263 following gains of more than 10% both Tuesday and Wednesday.

The shares will be added to MSCI’s standard and large cap gauges for China from June 2, the index provider said Wednesday.

CATL also trades in Shenzhen, where it is up about 32% over the past 12 months.

After CATL exercised the so-called greenshoe option, the overall proceeds of the Hong Kong listing rose from HK$35.7 billion ($4.6 billion) to HK$41 billion. That meant the maximum number of shares that could’ve been sold were sold. The Fujian-based battery maker has said the proceeds will help fund its expansion in Europe.

“We and other investment banks do a lot of due diligence around all the issues that people raise,” Dimon added.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

Why Apple Still Hasn’t Cracked AI Inside the First Stargate AI Data Center Anthropic Is Trying to Win the AI Race Without Losing Its Soul Microsoft’s CEO on How AI Will Remake Every Company, Including His Cartoon Network’s Last Gasp

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

View Comments