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Chinese firm 'raises $1.26b' in biggest IPO

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-01 09:03

China Zhongwang Holdings Ltd raised HK$9.8 billion ($1.26 billion) as it priced the world's largest initial public offering in nine months toward the low end of an offering range, said two people familiar with the sale.

The nation's largest maker of extruded aluminum products by capacity sold 1.4 billion new shares at HK$7 apiece, said the people, who declined to be identified because the information hasn't been publicly announced. The company processes the metal into various shapes and forms with extrusion presses for industrial and construction use.

The Liaoyang, northeastern China-based company was tapping investor demand for stocks of companies that could benefit from China's 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) package to stimulate the economy. The MSCI World Index rallied for seven weeks through April 24, raising optimism the IPO market is coming out of the doldrums.

Still, Zhongwang priced the IPO, the largest completed since a $2.5 billion offering by Saudi Arabian Mining Co in July, toward the low end of the HK$6.80-to-HK$8.80 offering range as a global economic slowdown and the spread of swine flu clouded the market outlook.

"Recently the market has been in a consolidation mode," said Winson Fong, who helps manage $2 billion at SG Asset Management HK Ltd. "The market seems to be coming to the end of the rebound. People are getting more cautious."

IPO market

The sharpest annual decline of the MSCI World Index in at least 39 years in 2008 forced more than 300 companies to put such sales on hold. Hong Kong's IPO market had its slowest first quarter in a decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Related readings:  Zhongwang starts IPO roadshow  China Zhongwang IPO to raise up to $1.6b  China to consider stability when timing IPOs  Second market readies for public offers

Led by its 45-year-old founder and Chairman Liu Zhongtian, Zhongwang generated 55 percent of its revenue last year from sales to industrial users, including State-owned rail carriage makers, according to its share sale prospectus. Extruded aluminum products used in the industrial sector carry a gross profit margin of more than three times that of those used in the construction industry, its other target market, it added.

China said it would spend 1.25 trillion yuan to develop its railway network, already the world's third longest, and to purchase railway-related equipment in the five years to 2010, according to the prospectus.

The sale of a 25.9 percent stake in the IPO valued Zhongwang at HK$37.8 billion, or about 10.7 times this year's earnings as estimated by investment banks involved in the sale, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Singapore-listed Midas Holdings Ltd, a smaller Chinese rival, trades at about 10 times estimated 2009 profit, according to Bloomberg data. Like Zhongwang, Midas supplies its products to the rail transportation and infrastructure industries.

Zhongwang's gross profit margin hit 28 percent last year.

"It seems already margins are as high as they can get and probably will go lower," said Arnout van Rijn, chief investment officer at Robeco Hong Kong Ltd.

Bloomberg News