Troubled US insurer AIG has won approval for a Hong Kong share sale of its Asian unit, AIA, worth up to 15 billion US dollars, in what could be the world’s second-biggest stock offering this year. Hong Kong’s stock exchange gave the offering a green light on Tuesday with AIA expected to list on October 29, Dow Jones Newswires reported citing an unnamed source.
AIG, which owes billions of dollars in US government bailouts, was forced to look again at the option of publicly floating AIA in Hong Kong after the collapse in June of Prudential’s 35.5-billion US dollar takeover bid.
The US insurer may sell off as much as half of its Asian unit with an investor roadshow to start on October 6 and the shares to be priced on October 21, Dow Jones said. A spokesman for Hong Kong’s bourse declined to confirm the reports.
AIA is also hoping to sign an agreement next week with so-called cornerstone investors — generally institutional buyers — who could pick up as much as one-fifth of the offering, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. Chinese insurance companies and some of China’s largest banks are said to be looking at both taking stakes and financing others, according to the Financial Times.
In July, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper reported that at least four consortia made up of private Chinese investors had approached AIG about buying its Asian business. Sovereign wealth funds had also expressed an interest in AIA, including Singapore’s GIC and Temasek, as well as funds in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar, the Financial Times said.
Agricultural Bank of China claimed the world’s biggest IPO in August when it confirmed it had raised 22.1 billion US dollars, after its shares debuted in Hong Kong in July. The monster sale beat the previous world record set by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which raised 21.9 billion dollars in 2006.
Hong Kong, Sept 22, 2010 (AFP)
