Two mainland finance firms, Huaxia Bank and China Construction Bank, are moving closer to initial public offerings.
Huaxia Bank has filed IPO papers to raise up to six billion yuan (HK$5.62 billion) from an A-share offering to improve its capital adequacy ratio, according to sources close to the deal.
The Beijing-based bank plans to issue 500 million A shares in its IPO. The price has tentatively been put at eight yuan to 12 yuan per share.
However, it will take the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) at least three months to approve Huaxia's application, meaning the earliest the bank could list would be the end of the year.
Huaxia filed an IPO application last year, hoping to become the fourth mainland bank to list on the A-share market, but the CSRC stalled the process because of a rumour that underwriter China Southern Securities had racked up three billion yuan in losses from its trust management arm.
In the end the CSRC allowed China Merchants Bank to become the fourth bank to list and raise nearly 11 billion yuan earlier this year.
Huaxia has hired China Southern Securities and Bank of China International (BOCI) to manage its IPO.