Construction Bank raises 8 b dollars in IPO (AFP) Updated: 2005-10-21 08:00
HONG KONG - China Construction Bank (CCB), the mainland's third largest
lender, has raised 8.0 billion US dollars in its initial public offering (IPO)
in Hong Kong after pricing the shares near the top end of its range. AFP
reported.
The share sale, the world's largest so far this year, has been
priced at 2.35 Hong Kong dollars a year (30 US cents) toward the high end of the
indicative price range of 1.90-2.40 dollars.
CCB, which concluded the subscription offering period for the retail tranche
Wednesday, will begin trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange on October 27.
The retail tranche offering was 40-50 times oversubscribed, although this was
slightly below the market's expectation for 60-80 times, market sources said
Thursday.
Given the oversubscription, the number of shares offered to the public has
been raised to 7.5 percent from 5.0 percent of the total number of shares on
offer, the source said.
Of the total global offering of 26.49 billion shares, 25.16 billion have been
allotted to institutions, with the remaining 1.32 billion earmarked for retail
investors.
Credit Suisse First Boston Corp, China International Capital Corp and Morgan
Stanley are the listing sponsors.
CCB will be the first of China's big four state-owned banks -- which includes
Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial
Bank of China -- to list shares overseas.
In December 2003, the CCB and Bank of China received 22.5 billion dollars
each to tidy up their balance sheets from Beijing.
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