2010-07-23 02:06

BEIJING - China Everbright Bank is planning to sell up to 6.1 billion shares in its initial public offering (IPO) on the Shanghai A-share market, according to the pre-disclosed IPO prospectus released on the China Securities Regulatory Commission(CSRC) website, the country's securities regulator.

The Beijing-based bank would sell as many as 7 billion shares, if an over-allotment option is exercised to expand the deal by 15 percent, according to prospectus.

However, the bank did not say how much the bank plans to raise from the IPO or when will the IPO take place. Market rumors said it is likely to be launched in August.

Further, the IPO will be reviewed by the securities regulator next Monday, according to the CSRC.

The bank's annual profit jumped from 5.04 billion yuan ($743 million) in 2007 to 7.64 billion yuan in 2009, while its non-performing loan ratio declined from 4.49 percent to 1.25 percent during the same period, according to the prospectus.

Total assets of the bank stood at 1.1977 trillion yuan at the end of last year, and the core capital adequacy ratio was 6.84 percent at that time, it said.

China's capital market?has only recently witnessed the world's largest IPO this year, as the country's largest rural lender, the Agricultural Bank of China, raised $22.1 billion from a dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong last week.

According to Tang Shuangning, chairman of the Everbright Group, originally the bank was planning on a 10 billion share IPO, but considering the capital market conditions, the scale was narrowed to 6.1 billion.

China's stock market posted a weak performance this year, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 26 percent in the first half of the year.