China's largest lender draws 420b HK dollars in share offer

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the largest Chinese commercial bank, received 77 times of orders and froze 420 billion HK dollars (53.9 billion U.S. dollars) in its issue of initial public offering (IPO) ended Thursday in Hong Kong, sources said Friday.

The ever largest IPO of Chinese banks started simultaneously on Monday in Hong Kong and Shanghai, the first time for a Chinese company issuing A and H shares at the same time.

The IPO taking place in Hong Kong is part of ICBC's global capital raise with 35.39 billion IPO to the overseas market, among which about 1.77 billion for Hong Kong's individual investors.

Besides its success in Hong Kong, the bank attracted more than 700 billion RMB (90 billion U.S. dollars) in orders from mainland market, breaking the record set by Bank of China, which attracted 660 billion RMB in its A share offering.

The dual IPO is expected to raise 22 billion U.S. dollars in both markets. ICBC plans to sell its H shares at a range from 2.56 HK dollars to 3.07 HK dollars, and its A shares from 2.6 RMB to 3. 12 RMB. It is believed the bank may price its shares at the highest level or close to the highest since the offer received immediate enthusiasm.

Experts believed making success in both markets, issuing A plus H share pattern of ICBC may set a good example for Chinese companies wishing to list in both domestic and overseas markets.

Source: Xinhua