The China Securities Regulatory Commission will review on Monday an application by the Bank of Communications (BoCom) for an initial public offering in Shanghai .

BoCom, China's fifth-largest lender, plans to issue 3.19 billion A shares , or 6.51 percent of its expanded share capital, the bank said in its preliminary prospectus.

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Funds raised from the offering will be used to replenish the bank's capital base, to support its business growth.

Its capital adequacy ratio stood at 10.83 percent at the end of 2006, down from 11.20 percent at the end of 2005, according to the prospectus.

The Shanghai-based, Hong Kong -listed bank, does not provide a target sum it hopes to raise.

BoCom's shares in Hong Kong climbed 0.71 percent to close at HK$8.51 on Friday.

Based on this price, the bank could raise about 27 billion yuan through the offering, but generally local companies sell shares in domestic IPOs at a discount to their H share price.

A recent Morgan Stanley report said China had the most expensive bank stocks in Asia's emerging markets, trading at about 3.2 times the estimated book value in 2007, compared with 1.7 times for peers in India and 1.4 times for South Korea.

BoCom traded at 3.5 times its estimated 2007 book value after shares surged 152 percent following its Hong Kong IPO in June 2005.

The lender joins China CITIC Bank Co to take advantage of soaring domestic stock prices to sell shares.

China CITIC Bank earlier this month began marketing a simultaneous IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong that is expected to raise as much as $5.4 billion.

China Galaxy Securities, CITIC Securities and Haitong Securities have been appointed lead underwriter s and Goldman Sachs Gaohua Securities the financial adviser for BoCom's Shanghai IPO.

After the offering, HSBC's stake in BoCom will drop to 18.6 percent from the current 19.9 percent.

(China Daily 04/14/2007 page10)

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