China Everbright Bank on Tuesday said it would relaunch its much-delayed plan to list in Hong Kong but has slashed the number of shares it hopes to sell amid continuing market volatility.
The midsized Beijing-based lender has gained approvals from regulators in mainland China and Hong Kong to issue 7bn new shares, a person in charge of the bank’s initial public told the Financial Times on Tuesday. The bank did not indicate how much it was hoping to raise but state-owned media reported that the listing would yield about HK$15bn ($1.9bn).
Everbright raised Rmb21.7bn ($3.4bn) from its Shanghai initial public offering last August. The IPO was heavily subscribed but Everbright’s shares subsequently fell by more than 20 per cent in value on concerns that Chinese banks would see their earnings squeezed by Beijing’s credit tightening measures. The bank announced plans this year for a follow-up $6bn sale in Hong Kong in efforts to further shore up its balance sheets, but cancelled that plan in June due to poor market conditions, according to people close to the listing.