Breaking

Kingboard Laminates Up 570% YTD on AI Demand as Mainland Stake Doubles to 13%

June 18, 2026 at 01:10 EDT

Infra & Chips
Finance

Mainland Chinese investors have doubled their stake in Hong Kong-listed Kingboard Laminates Holdings (1888) to 13% this year, according to the latest stock exchange data. The shares have climbed more than 570% since January 2026, driven by surging demand for circuit-board materials used in AI servers.

The AI Re-rating · Kingboard Laminates (1888.HK)

The upstream bottleneck of the AI boom — and a 570% surge

Once a traditional industrial materials maker, Kingboard Laminates has been re-rated as a key supplier of copper-clad laminates for AI-server PCBs. Mainland investors more than doubled their stake to 13%, fueling the rally.

+570%

1888.HK shares since January 2026

+300%

Parent 0148.HK shares over the period

+165%

Parent 2025 net profit projection, to HK$4.32B

Mainland investor stake — more than doubled this year

Domestic buying, tied to national-scale AI investment, climbed from ~6% to 13%.

~6%

Start of year

13%

Now

Parent monetizes the rally

A ~155M-share block sale raised HK$11.77B (≈ US$1.5B)

Sale price

HK$76 / share

11.5% discount to prior close

Use of proceeds

PCB capacity + R&D

Parent shares jumped ~18%

Where Kingboard sits in the AI stack

CCL materials
Kingboard (upstream)

→

PCBs

→

AI servers & data centers

Further upstream than GPU makers or chip foundries — a bottleneck for high-frequency and thick-copper-foil CCL as AI servers use far more PCB material than before.

THE BULL CASE

Hidden bottleneck of AI infrastructure
Upstream play, distinct from GPUs/chips
Hong Kong-listing liquidity
Relatively cheap vs Chinese peers

THE CAUTION

Stretched valuation after the surge
Volatility of China-related stocks
Regulatory risk
Demand growth must keep up

Continue reading

The rest of this article is for AI News Blitz readers. Choose an option below to keep reading.