China Everbright tags IPO at $US0.46 per share

Lender’s IPO success may encourage rival banks to follow suit.

China Everbright Bank has set the price for its Shanghai initial public offering at 3.10 yuan ($0.46) per share, the top of an indicative range, putting it on course to raise up to $3.2 billion.

A warm welcome by investors for the bank's IPO would bode well for their appetite for other planned fundraisings by China's major lenders, looking to raise tens of billions of dollars in the coming months after a 2009 lending binge dented their balance sheets.

The Everbright IPO's retail portion was 28 times oversubscribed, while institutional investors bid for about 10 times the shares available to them, the lender said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Analysts said a strong performance when China's 11th biggest bank debuts in Shanghai on Aug 18 would also encourage smaller rivals hoping to raise funds to speed up their reform process to win official approval for listings.

Everbright's pricing level, at a lower valuation to many of its peers, would likely lead to share price gains when it starts to trade on the Shanghai market, analysts said.

View the full story in Business Spectator.