An employee walks past the Baidu Inc logo in a lobby at the company's headquarters in Beijing, China, on March 4, 2021. (PHOTO / BLOOMBERG)

Search engine giant Baidu Inc is seeking to raise as much as HK$28 billion (US$3.6 billion) in a second listing in Hong Kong, kicking off the second such share sale by a US-traded mainland firm in the city this year.

Nasdaq-listed Baidu is selling 95 million shares in the offering and has set a maximum price of HK$295 for the portion of the sale reserved for Hong Kong retail investors, it said in a regulatory filing Thursday. That price represents a 19 percent premium to Baidu’s Wednesday closing price in New York. Baidu rose 6.8 percent on Thursday.

Baidu aims to set the final price before the US market open on March 17 and start trading in Hong Kong on March 23. At US$3.6 billion, it would be the biggest so-called homecoming listing of a US-traded mainland company in Hong Kong since JD.com Inc.’s June 2020 offering, which raised US$4.5 billion.

Baidu follows online car-sales website Autohome Inc. in seeking a trading foothold in the Asian financial hub this year, after a wave of such share sales in 2020 which saw some US$17 billion raised. Other companies looking at selling shares in the city include Tencent Music Entertainment Group and video company Bilibili Inc.

At US$3.6 billion, it would be the biggest so-called homecoming listing of a US-traded mainland company in HK since JD.com Inc.'s June 2020 offering, which raised US$4.5 billion

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Autohome raised US$688 million after pricing its Hong Kong share sale at about a 5.5 percent discount to its last closing price in New York on Monday.

A growing cohort of US-traded Chinese firms have been listing in Hong Kong amid deteriorating relations between the world’s two biggest economies. The second listings enable the companies to expand their investor bases closer to their home markets.

The trend has boosted the listing volumes of Hong Kong’s bourse, which now has a growing contingent of tech companies listed there. The city has had a bumper start to the year for initial public offerings, such as video startup Kuaishou Technology’s US$6.2 billion debut in February.

READ MORE: Sources: Baidu to sell around 4% of shares in HK listing

The mainland company's shares are trading 168 percent above their offering price.

Once one of China's tech leaders, Baidu is now playing catch-up as the country's internet users increasingly shift from desktop to mobile. In recent years the company has spent billions of dollars in areas such as language learning and autonomous driving, betting on smart devices and vehicles of the future.

Bank of America Corp, CLSA Ltd and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are joint sponsors of the offering, while China International Capital Corp., UBS Group AG and CCB International (Holdings) Ltd. are joint global coordinators, according to Thursday's filing.