Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC, 中國工商銀行), China's largest lender by assets, set a price range of HK$2.56 (US$0.33) to HK$3.07 a share for its initial public offering in Hong Kong, according to Dow Jones Newswires yesterday.
ICBC is planning the first ever dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong. If priced at the top of the range, ICBC's dually listed IPO would exceed US$21 billion, with the Hong Kong-listed portion alone topping US$16 billion.
That would make it the world's largest, ahead of NTT Mobile Communications Network Inc which raised US$18.4 billion in 1998, according to market-data provider Dealogic Inc PLC.
The bank is seeking to issue 13 billion A shares priced in the Chinese yuan in Shanghai and 35.39 billion H shares, stocks for a mainland Chinese-registered company listed in Hong Kong, which translates into about 14.8 percent of its share capital.
If the green shoe of ICBC's IPO is exercised, the bank could sell up to 14.95 billion A shares and 40.70 billion H shares, which would account for 16.7 percent of its total share capital.
The H shares were priced between 1.96 to 2.23 times forecast 2006 book value pre-green shoe, said a person familiar with the issue.
Of its listed peers in China's Big Four state-owned banks, China Construction Bank Corp's (
The ICBC IPO has secured US$3.5 billion in offers already, from Hong Kong tycoons, including billionaire Li Ka-shing (
ICBC said it would use the proceeds from its listing to supplement capital and support business growth. At the end of June, its capital adequacy ratio was 10.74 percent and its non-performing loan ratio was 4.1 percent.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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