Amid an 85% year-on-year decline in global IPO volumes, clean energy firm Huadian Fuxin is set to price an initial public offering of up to US$389 million equivalent (including a 15% over-allotment option) on June 20. As a concession to current volatility, the deal was cut from an original US$1 billion. read
HONG KONG (Dow Jones Banking Intelligence) – The Facebook IPO and its confusing messages have, once again, highlighted differences in IPO market practices between the U.S. and the rest of the world. ECM bankers in New York and the Silicon Valley could in fact take some lessons from Asian ways to send clear guidance to investors – and avoid causing IPO bubbles. read
Graff Diamonds, a high-end jeweller, was supposed to have turned around Hong Kong’s moribund IPO market. It was not to be. Instead the company pulled its US$1 billion-equivalent listing on 30 May, piling more disappointment on an already massively downbeat market plagued by serial deal cancellations. What went wrong?
I was interviewed this morning by anchor Bryan Curtis on Hong Kong’s RTHK 3 radio “Money For Nothing” programme. The topic was IPOs, with a focus on the Facebook flotation on NASDAQ, the aborted Graff Diamonds IPO in Hong Kong – and market conditions generally. read
China Everbright Bank, the country’s 13th largest bank as ranked by assets, is set to raise up to US$2.5 billion in what could be the largest initial public offering in Asia, so far in 2012. read
Bankers on May 7 started sounding fund managers on their interest for the long-awaited Graff Diamonds initial public offering. The process, known as pre-marketing or, more commonly these days, pre-deal investor education (PDIE), puts the highly anticipated US$1 billion (approximate) deal on track for a June 7 listing. read
Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical has secured a green light from both the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the authorities in Hong Kong for its long-awaited initial public offering on HKEx, which means that launch could start soon. read
Bookbuilding closed late last week for the re-launched initial public offering of Haitong Securities, the mainland’s third-largest broker by revenue, bringing welcome activity to a lacklustre Hong Kong new issue market. read
Equity capital markets reporter Elzio Barreto published yesterday on Reuters an article on the increasing use by ECM bankers in Hong Kong (and elsewhere in Asia) of shadow books and anchor investors, to successfully bring IPOs to market in this improving – but nevertheless still challenging – environment.
HONG KONG (Dow Jones Investment Banker) – Forget the theory about pre-deal investor education (PDIE) and the price discovery process. In these volatile markets what really matters is to initiate book building only when a deal has effectively already been covered. Here’s why – and how. read
