Industrial and Commercial Bank of China received approval Thursday from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to move forward with an initial public offering that may become the largest ever, the Wall Street Journal reported. ICBC was expected to release Friday the prospectus for its offering that may raise US$19 billion, higher than the US$18.4 billion NTT DoCoMo IPO of 1998. ICBC plans to issue simultaneous listings in Hong Kong and Shanghai, with approval for the latter expected soon. The bank wants to sell 20.4 billion A-shares and up to 40.7 billion H-shares by the end of October. Although some analysts fear the size of the offering could take away from other IPOs, there seems to be huge demand for Chinese listings. China Merchants Bank last week saw its listing oversubscribed 266 times with institutional orders worth more than US$96.4 billion.
Categories