China's biggest lender begins roadshow in Hong Kong

The Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country's biggest lender by assets, started international roadshow for its initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong Monday.

ICBC is planning the first ever dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong, expecting to raise between 18 billion U.S. dollars to 21 billion U.S. dollars.

It is reported that the bank had set a price range of 2.56 HK dollars (0.33 U.S. dollars) to 3.07 HK dollars (0.39 U.S. dollars) for the Hong Kong IPO.

The bank said it wanted to issue 13 billion A-shares, which are priced in Chinese currency, in Shanghai, and offer 35.39 billion H shares, in Hong Kong, and that the A shares would be priced equal to H shares.

By the end of last year, ICBC had a total assets of 800 billion dollars, and generated 21.4 billion dollars of operation income.

ICBC estimated that in 2006, the bank's net profits will be no less than 47.2 billion yuan (about 6 billion U.S. dollars), with per-share net profits at 0.14 yuan (0.017 dollars).

ICBC will be the third of China's big four commercial banks to list in Hong Kong. The other two are Bank of China Ltd. and China Construction Bank Corp.

Source: Xinhua