China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co. Ltd, (CPIC), one of the
country's top insurers, could net up to 30 billion yuan (4.08
billion U.S. dollars) from its initial public offering (IPO), which
runs from Thursday to Friday on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The price range of its A-share IPO was set at 27-30 yuan after a
road show that ran from Dec. 7-11 in Beijing, Shanghai, and the
southern cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou, CPIC said in a notice
published in the China Securities Journal, a newspaper run
by Xinhua News Agency.
The price range translated into a price-to-earnings ratio of
28.06 to 31.18 times. All proceeds from the IPO will be used to
increase CPIC's capital to boost its growth, said the paper.
The newspaper said 350 million shares of the offer would be open
to offline subscriptions from institutional investors from Thursday
to Friday within a range of 27-30 yuan. The remainder will be
offered online to individual and institutional investors on Friday
at 30 yuan.
"Demand for the one billion shares was strong amid positive
earnings expectations and growth potential for the insurer, because
the domestic insurance market is expanding quickly and CPIC has a
good sales team and network," an analyst from China Life, who asked
not to be identified, told Xinhua.
Founded in 1991, CPIC ranks third in China's life insurance
market, with a share of 9.5 percent and 185,000 sales employees
working in 3,270 sub-branches.
The insurer ranks second in the property insurance market, with
a share of 11.6 percent and a team of about 10,000 sales
representatives in 2,009 sub-branches.
Analysts predicted the shares would start public trading at the
high end of the IPO price range, as did the shares of major
companies that recently listed, such as China Construction Bank,
Shenhua and PetroChina.
CPIC will become the third Chinese insurer to be listed on the
A-share market, joining China Life and China Ping An. CPIC will
issue no more than 900 million H-shares on the Hong Kong Stock
Exchange after making its debut in Shanghai.
China International Capital Corp. and UBS Securities Co. are the
lead underwriters.
(Xinhua News Agency December 13, 2007)
