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IPOs of bank attract hefty fund

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-04-10 13:31

CITIC Bank, China's second commercial bank to stage dual IPOs inShanghaiandHong Kong, has attracted billions of U.S. dollars for itsH-shares, with another 20 institutional investors ready to snap up itsA-shares, a company source said on Tuesday.

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The seventh largestbank of Chinastarted road shows on Tuesday inBeijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen and was expected to list on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock markets on April 27.

The bank plans to issue 2.3 billion yuan-denominatedA sharesin Shanghai and 4.9 billionH sharesin Hong Kong.

Although the price of its share has not been announced, insiders expect it will be between four and 4.5 yuan. If all shares are sold at that price it would raise more than 32 billion yuan (4 billion U.S. dollars) for the bank.

Last year the IPO of China's ICBC raised more than 19 billion U.S. dollars.

The China CITIC Bank says it will use the funds to help raise its capital adequacy ratio.

If all the shares in the dual IPOs are sold they will account for 18.77 percent of the bank's total shares.

CITIC bank has been promoting its A shares since receiving approval for its Shanghai IPO on April 2 from theChina Securities Regulatory Commission.

The bank received approval to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange earlier in March.

CITIC bank is scheduled to announce the price per share on April 23.

The A shares of CITIC Bank will be offered first to its strategic investors and other institutional investors, and then be made available to the public.

Strategic investors will be allocated shares valued at three billion yuan accounting for about 23 percent of the total value of the A-share IPO.

CITIC Bank reported 3.73 billion yuan in net profit in 2006, up from 3.15 billion yuan in 2005. The bank expects its net profit to hit 5.69 billion yuan in 2007.

CITIC Bank has assets of just under 100 billion U.S. dollars.

Its capital adequacy ratio, the measure of its own capital in proportion to its outstanding loans, was raised to 9.41 percent by the end of 2006, while its non-performing loan ratio was 2.5 percent.

CITIC Bank is the second company to simultaneously list on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges after theIndustrial and Commercial Bank of China.