HONG KONG-Despite what has been a buoyant market for Chinese companies’ share offerings in Hong Kong in recent weeks, shares in China Everbright Bank sank on their trading debut on Friday.
Everbright Bank raised around $3 billion last week in an initial public offering â€" Hong Kong’s biggest of the year â€" after pricing its shares at 3.98 Hong Kong dollars, or 51 U.S. cents, apiece, near the lower end of their marketed range.
The stock opened at 3.95 dollars on Friday morning in Hong Kong, and later in the morning traded as low as 3.78 dollars, a decline of 5 percent. The benchmark Hang Seng index was down less than half a percentage point.
Several companies that have recently staged Hong Kong I.P.O.s have soared on their trading debuts. Those include China Cinda Asset Management, a state-owned so-called bad bank whose stock gained as much as 33 percent on its first day of trading, Dec. 12.
On Thursday, shares in Fu Shou Yuan International, a cemetery operator based in Shanghai, closed 45 percent higher on their first day of trading, after the company raised net I.P.O. proceeds of 1.55 billion dollars, or $200 million.
Still, Everbright Bank can claim some relief that the deal is finally done, having shelved two previous attempts at a Hong Kong listing. It sold 5.8 billion shares last week, raising 23 billion dollars, with 19 so-called cornerstone investors accounting for 58 percent of the stock offered.
