Chinese insurer PICC has attracted strong interest from investors for its $3.6 billion initial public offering in Hong Kong next month a day after it began taking orders, cent of the IPO — one of the world’s biggest share sales this year — has been fully sold after it was launched to institutional investors Thursday, Dow Jones Newswires reported quoting unnamed sources.
The Beijing-based People’s Insurance Company, the nation’s fourth largest insurance company, will be selling the remaining 5 per cent of its 6.898 billion new shares to retail investors from early next week.
State-owned PICC had secured 16 so-called cornerstone investors ahead of its order-taking Thursday — including US insurer AIG — which have promised to invest a combined total of $1.72 billion in shares, according to Dow Jones.
Cornerstone investors are given the option to buy vast portions of stock in an IPO if they agree to hold the shares for a certain length of time.
The IPO, scheduled for December 7, could mark a reversal from a stagnant IPO market in Hong Kong, the top such market for the past three years which took a hit after Chinese companies grew worried about slow economic growth. AIG said Thursday it would invest $500 million in PICC’s IPO and will be forming a joint venture with the Chinese insurer, in a move to boost its presence in China.
The tie-up puts AIG in competition with its former Asian unit AIA, in which it owns about a 13.7 per cent stake, as it tries to break into a market where domestic players dominate.
Hong Kong, Nov 23, 2012 (AFP)
