Company: GDHLF
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001410578-25-000935
Chunk: 126

Company: GDS Holdings Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 3
Chunk 126
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 volumes of our securities, regardless of the underlying cause of such fluctuations, may attract the attention or scrutiny of governmental or regulatory authorities, which could have further material and adverse effects on the prices and trading volumes of our ADSs and/or ordinary shares.

If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, the market price for our ADSs and/or ordinary shares and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our ADSs and ordinary shares depends in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. If research analysts do not establish and maintain adequate research coverage or if one or more of the analysts who covers us downgrades our ADSs and/or ordinary shares or publishes inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, the market price for our ADSs and ordinary shares would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our company or fail to publish reports on us regularly, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which, in turn, could cause the market price or trading volume for our ADSs and ordinary shares to decline.

Techniques employed by short sellers may drive down the market price of our ADSs and/or ordinary shares.

Short selling is the practice of selling securities that the seller does not own but rather has borrowed from a third party with the intention of buying identical securities back at a later date to return to the lender. The short seller hopes to profit from a decline in the value of the securities between the sale of the borrowed securities and the purchase of the replacement shares, as the short seller expects to pay less in that purchase than it received in the sale. As it is in the short seller’s best interests for the price of the stock to decline, many short sellers publish, or arrange for the publication of, negative opinions regarding the relevant issuer and its business prospects in order to create negative market momentum and generate profits for themselves after selling a stock short. These short attacks have, in the past, led to selling of shares in the market.

Table of Contents

Public companies that have substantially all of their operations in mainland China have been the subject of short selling. Much of the scrutiny and negative publicity has centered on allegations of a lack of effective internal control over financial reporting resulting in financial and accounting irregularities and mistakes, inadequate corporate governance policies or a lack of adherence thereto and, in many cases, allegations of fraud. As a result, many of these companies are now conducting internal and external investigations into the allegations and, in the interim, are subject to