Li & Fung rides out Zeman's $888m sale

The price of Li & Fung shares barely budged yesterday after Canadian entrepreneur Allan Zeman placed 51.48 million of its shares at a 3.36 per cent discount to raise $888.03 million.

The shares, which accounted for about 1.75 per cent of the issued capital of Hong Kong's oldest and largest exporting company, were sold a $17.25 each, or towards the bottom end of the indicated $17.20 to $17.85 price range, according to sole bookrunner Goldman Sachs.

Despite the modest discount to Tuesday's closing price of $17.85 and the fact that the share price had risen 16.5 per cent in the past month, the placement was about two times covered, market sources said.

About 60 per cent of the shares went to US investors while 35 per cent was picked up by Asian buyers. The remaining 5 per cent was sold to Europe, the sources said.

Mr Zeman, known as 'the father of Lan Kwai Fong', made no profit from the sale of his shares, which he received as part-payment for selling his jointly owned sourcing firm Colby Group Holdings to Li & Fung in October 2000. Li & Fung issued 113.2 million shares at $17.25 to the two sellers and also paid them $247.5 million in cash.

However, Mr Zeman said he was happy with the dividends he had received and was prepared to buy more shares in the company.