| China's biggest commercial bank to launch IPO |
HONG KONG, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country's top lender, is preparing to launch its 48.4 billion shares of IPO (initial public offering) simultaneously in Hong Kong and Shanghai in October.
The bank expects to raise between 18 billion U.S. dollars to 21 billion U.S. dollars through the IPO, which could be the world's largest since Japan's top mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo Inc. raised 18.4 billion dollars in 1998.
Late Friday night and early Saturday morning, ICBC posted its preliminary prospectus on the websites of China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Lt.
The bank said it wants to issue 13 billion A-shares, which are priced in Chinese currency, in Shanghai, and offer 35.39 billion H shares, priced in HK dollars, in Hong Kong.
The preliminary prospectus said that the A shares would be priced equal to H shares, without providing details. Pre-marketing for the IPO will begin next week and the stock will start trading in late October.
By the end of last year, the bank had a total assets of 800 billion dollars, and generated 21.4 billion dollars of operation income.
The prospectus estimated that in 2006, the bank's net profits will be no less than 47.2 billion yuan ( about six billion dollars) , with per-share net profits at 0.14 yuan (0.017 dollars).
ICBC will be the third of China's big four commercial banks to list in Hong Kong. The other two are Bank of China Ltd. and China Construction Bank Corp
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