Largest Chinese commercial bank begins public offering

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the largest Chinese commercial bank, started its three-day initial public offering (IPO) Monday in Hong Kong with 1.77 billion H shares for the public.

The offering of H-shares in Hong Kong and A-shares in Shanghai took place on the same day, the first time for a Chinese Mainland company to list simultaneously in both overseas and mainland markets.

The bank plans to issue 35.39 billion IPO to the overseas market, among which about 33.62 billion will be subscribed by international institutions and 1.77 billion for local investors.

The share price is not decided yet but it will be within 2.56 HK dollars to 3.07 HK dollars per share. It is estimated that if the price per share is 2.81 HK dollars, then the total capital raised through overseas market will be about 77.4 billion HK dollars (9.94 billion U.S. dollars), the largest among the three largest Chinese banks listing in Hong Kong, including ICBC, China Construction Bank and Bank of China.

ICBC said it accept application through internet to save paper and meet the estimated high public demand. The share price will be decided on Oct. 23 and start trading on Oct. 27.

Source: Xinhua