The four-hour road show would begin on 14:00 on two special securities investment web sites, the www.cs.com.cn and www.p5w.net, where the Ping An Board of Directors and top management of Ping An would communicate with potential investors.

The insurer, in which the London-based HSBC Holdings PLC holds 19.9 percent stake, was already listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The IPO shares are expected to start trading on the Shanghai bourse before the Spring Festival, the Chinese Lunar New Year which falls on February18.

The company said the money raised through the IPO, which could be as much as 38.87 billion yuan (about 5.11 billion U.S. dollars), will be used to raise its capital fund and for businesses approved by regulators, but it didn't provide specifics.

Ping An had 16.1 percent of the country's life insurance market in 2005 and posted 5.32 billion yuan (684 million U.S. dollars) in net profits in the first three quarters of last year, up 25.77 percent from the same period a year earlier.

China Life, the first Chinese insurer which began trading in Shanghai on January 9, has raised 28.32 billion yuan (3.65 billion U.S. dollars) from its initial public offering of 1.5 billion A-shares.

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