The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the nation's top lender, is expected to cut its initial public offering (IPO) by three billion shares to 17 billion shares, state media said on Monday.
The ICBC decided to slash its A-share issue on the Shanghai Stock Exchange after watching the recent sluggish performance of Bank of China shares, the China Business News said, citing sources. ICBC had originally planned to raise around 19 billion dollars from a dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai.
This would have made it bigger than the 18.4 billion dollar listing in 1988 of Japan's NTT DoCoMo telecom operator, the world's largest. Last month Air China, the national flag carrier, was forced to slash its one-billion-dollar share sale in Shanghai by almost 40 percent due to weak investor interest.
For its part, Bank of China raked in 2.5 billion dollars in the mainland's biggest-ever listing after raising 11.3 billion dollars in June in the former British colony of Hong Kong.
The lender's Shanghai listed shares, which rose more than 23 percent from its IPO price of 3.08 yuan on its July debut have since fallen back, closing Monday at 3.25 yuan. ICBC is also facing regulatory issues in Hong Kong, which requires that it publish how many shares it plans to offer, but unlike Shanghai, it does not need to forecast the expected trading price range after the IPO, the newspaper said.
ICBC is now awaiting hearings for both its China and Hong Kong IPO applications, with Chinese press reports saying the lender will set the share prices at around three yuan.
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