In short
Rubbish Talk rates Daily Mail Money's claim that "nearly £4bn wiped off value of Shein" a 2/10 because Bloomberg's own data confirms Shein lost roughly $5bn (about £3.9bn) in its first week, closing 19% below its Hong Kong IPO price, second only to Baidu's worse debut.
The Verdict
Base fact, lightly seasoned. The headline's core number checks out against Bloomberg's tracking of the listing, and "grim" is a fair characterisation of a stock that fell as much as 10% on debut day and never recovered. The only iteration away from pure fact is the framing choice to lead with the raw pound figure rather than the percentage or the relative ranking, which is a stylistic pick, not a distortion.
What actually happened
Shein priced its Hong Kong IPO at HK$48.56 a share on 1 September 2026, raising HK$13.6billion and valuing the company at roughly $26billion. By the end of its first week, despite a small Monday bounce, shares closed 19% below the offer price, cutting the market value to around $21billion, a drop of about £3.9-4billion.
Key facts
- IPO price: HK$48.56 (£4.57), raising HK$13.6bn (£1.28bn), valuing Shein at just over $26bn (£19.2bn) on 1 September 2026.
- Shares closed the week 19% below the offer price despite a Monday gain, per Bloomberg's tracked data.
- That's the second-worst performance in the first five sessions among companies that raised at least $1 billion in a Hong Kong listing, just behind a 19.9% plunge by Baidu Inc.
- The company's market value has dropped to about $21 billion from roughly $26 billion.
- Shein's 2022 private valuation peaked near $100bn, meaning the IPO price already reflected a roughly 75% haircut before this week's further slide.
- Quarterly loss of £74million for Q1 (to end of March), versus a £296million profit a year earlier, tied partly to the closure of "de minimis" import-duty loopholes in the US and EU.
What to watch for
Watch whether the UK follows the US and EU in tightening its own £135 de minimis threshold, since goods have been funnelled into Britain as other markets close the loophole, per the article. Also watch analyst commentary attributing the slide to company-specific issues, tariffs, fulfilment costs, the shift to a marketplace model, rather than a generic sentiment problem, which changes whether a rebound is plausible.
