GF Securities (000776.SHE), China’s fourth-largest brokerage, raised US$3.6 billion in its Hong Kong initial public offering Tuesday, marking the second-largest new listing globally this year and making Hong Kong the world’s top destination for IPOs in 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported. With Shanghai’s stock market climbing to a seven-year high during the first quarter, an explosion of trading and margin lending has boosted profits for mainland brokerages like GF Securities. That firm sold 1.48 billion new shares at HK$18.85 (US$2.43) each, a 42% discount on its Shenzhen share price of RMB26.25 (US$4.23), and will list in Hong Kong on April 10.