Company: ZLAB
Filing Date: 2025-04-18
Form Type: PRE 14A
Source: 0001628280-25-018384
Chunk: 22

Company: Zai Lab Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-04-18
Form: PRE 14A
Chunk 22
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 Hong Kong Stock Exchange, our Board of Directors generally had the authority to repurchase the Company’s authorized shares. Such authority was similar to that of other companies listed on Nasdaq or in the United States. Under the HK Listing Rules, however, a company must obtain such authority from its shareholders to repurchase its shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Granting such authority to the Board of Directors is a routine annual matter for primary-listed companies on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and is consistent with market practice. Without such authority, our ability to repurchase shares would be limited to the repurchase of shares that trade on Nasdaq and would not include repurchases of shares that trade on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Granting the Board of Directors this authority will provide parity between investors who hold our shares that trade on Nasdaq and investors that hold our shares that trade on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

As a result, in order to give the Company the flexibility to repurchase ordinary shares and/or ADSs if and when appropriate and in accordance with the HK Listing Rules, we are seeking shareholder approval of a general mandate to the Board of Directors to repurchase ordinary shares and/or ADSs (the “Repurchase Mandate”) of up to 10% of the total number of issued ordinary shares of the Company (excluding treasury shares as defined in the HK Listing Rules) (the “treasury shares”) as of the date of the Annual Meeting. If approved in accordance with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange requirements and HK Listing Rules, the Repurchase Mandate shall remain in force until the next annual general meeting, unless otherwise earlier revised or revoked by shareholders at a general meeting. We are seeking shareholder approval of a mandate to authorize the Board of Directors to repurchase shares and/or ADSs of up to 10% of our issued shares (excluding treasury shares). Pursuant to this proposal, assuming for illustrative purposes that our total issued shares remain unchanged from April 11, 2025 to the date of the Annual Meeting (i.e., 1,101,283,740 ordinary shares) and the Company does not have treasury shares, the Company will be allowed to repurchase a maximum of 110,128,374 ordinary shares, in compliance with the HK Listing Rules and to the same extent already authorized under our Current Articles and applicable Cayman law, SEC, and Nasdaq requirements.

The Board of Directors believes that, following our primary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, it is in the best interests of the Company and our shareholders to have