China Telecom relaunch gets warm response

Despite negative publicity surrounding its global share offering, China Telecom's Hong Kong retail tranche was three times subscribed at the second attempt, according to market sources.

More than 12,000 retail investors had sought about 1.3 billion shares when the offer closed yesterday, compared with the 377.8 million units available.

The mainland's dominant fixed-line carrier relaunched its global offering after cutting back its size by 55 per cent following a weak response from international investors.

It reduced the number of shares for sale from 16.8 billion to 7.556 billion. The tranche allocated for Hong Kong investors - accounting for 5 per cent of the global offering - was trimmed from 840 million units.

China Telecom has priced its shares at HK$1.48 a piece, at the low end of its price range of HK$1.48 to HK$1.71.

During its first attempt to sell its shares, the company drew a tepid response from retail investors, with a total of 9,612 valid applications for 880.596 million units.

The relaunched IPO found retail investors were demanding about 47 per cent shares more than they wanted in the previous sale.