SHANGHAI - Investors showed strong enthusiasm for the closely-watched A-share IPO by Jiangsu Phoenix Publishing & Media Corp Ltd, the first company in the sector to go public after a central government decision to boost the culture industry.

Its initial price range was set on Monday at 8.00 yuan ($1.26) to 8.80 yuan, a range analysts said was fairly valued, after 105 institutional investors subscribed to more than 3.2 billion shares, or six times the approximately 51 million shares the company plans to float.

Phoenix's price/earnings ratio of 57.63 to 63.40 yuan means that the company could raise up to 44.8 billion yuan. The price/earnings ratio for the 972 stocks on the Shanghai Stock Exchange averaged about 15 on Monday.

The final price will be set on Wednesday after a second round of price discovery.

In a plenary session in October, the central government pledged to boost China's global cultural influence and provide the sector with more resources domestically. One of the main measures adopted was the promotion of IPOs in the sector.

Phoenix's float comes amid a push to incorporate and rationalize the largely State-owned publishing sector to help it regain profitability.

Between 2005 and 2010, all 148 government-owned publishing houses - including Phoenix - restructured and incorporated.

"Phoenix has set a good example. We will see more culture industry companies go public," said Zhang Yanan, a media industry analyst with Zero2IPO Group, a venture capital industry consultancy. "Central government policies have made it a golden era for culture industry companies to float shares."

In October, the shares of listed culture industry companies surged an average of 21.3 percent, boosted by the government policy, despite a flat performance by the Shanghai Composite Index.

Chen Shaofeng, vice-dean of the Institute for Cultural Industries at Peking University, has said that some 120 to 150 companies in the culture sector might seek domestic or foreign listings over the next five years.

Phoenix plans to use its IPO proceeds to expand its sales network, build logistics centers and develop digital publishing.

The publisher has a rich real estate portfolio. It owns 90 percent of its 856 sales points, which have a total construction area of more 800,000 square meters, according to its prospectus.

Up to 977 million yuan of the money raised will be used to build more of what the company calls "culture malls", which integrate book stores, cinemas, cultural entertainment centers and youth sports centers. It owns seven such complexes nationwide.