Using a sample of China’s partially privatized state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that have emerged in the global equity markets, this paper examines the decision to list overseas and its consequences. We find that overseas listing of Chinese SOEs is primarily determined by political needs, not by firms’ desire to fund growth and expand foreign sales. In addition, we find that overseas listed SOEs have more professional boards of directors, use greater accounting conservatism, exhibit higher investment efficiency, and have better one-year and two-year post-listing stock performance than their domestically listed counterparts. Additional analysis exploring the impact of political relations on overseas listing effects finds that strong political connections weaken the overseas listing effect on investment efficiency and post-listing stock performance, consistent with the positive overseas listing effect on investment efficiency being attenuated by government influence to satisfy state objectives such as excess employment. Taken together, our study suggests that overseas listing provides a mechanism for constraining politicians’ pursuit of private benefits and improving efficiency for partially privatized Chinese SOEs. However, the effectiveness of this mechanism is limited for SOEs with strong ties to the government.