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Lianhua Supermarket Co. plans to raise as much as US$120 million from a March share sale in Hong Kong, to expand and rival overseas retailers targeting China's increasingly wealthy consumers, said bankers involved in the transaction.
China's largest grocery chain, the first to go public, may apply to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as early as this month to sell 25 percent of the company, the bankers said.
Lianhua aims to open more hypermarkets - suburban superstores selling clothes, groceries and appliances - and another 1,000 shops this year to avoid losing market share to overseas rivals including Wal-Mart Stores, the world's largest retailer, France's Carrefour, the world No. 2, and U.S. retailer PriceSmart.
"We certainly need funds to expand because supermarket operations require a certain scale to achieve growth," Lianhua's secretary Wang Jian said. "Hypermarkets and convenience stores will be our focus in coming years," he said, declining to comment on the share sale.
The company hired BNP Paribas Peregrine and HSBC Holdings to arrange the sale.
Overseas stores have taken market share from Chinese shops with their larger supermarkets offering cheaper products.
Spending in China increased 9.1 percent in November to 373 billion yuan (US$45 billion) and household savings topped US$1 trillion, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Lianhua plans to increase its hypermarkets to 100 from 20 by 2005, spokesman Sun Ming said.
The company may this year increase its shops in China to 2,900 from 1,900 it had last year.
Sales rose a third to 14.6 billion yuan in 2001 from a year earlier, Sun said. He did not reveal the company's earnings.
Overseas retailers have benefited from the opening up of China, with its 1.3 billion consumers, after it joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001.
Wal-Mart, which opened its first outlet in China in 1996, has 22 of its 1,227 international stores on the China's mainland, according to data on its Website.
Still, China places restrictions on foreign retailers' trading hours and the number of stores they are allowed to operate in the country.
Carrefour sold stakes in about half its 27 China stores last June after it failed to comply with a law limiting foreign retailers to a 65 percent stake in hypermarkets.
(eastday.com January 11, 2003)
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