Retail investors underline the market's mixed response to the public offerings
Mainland media services firm Qin Jia Yuan Media Services received overwhelming response from retail investors to its initial public offering of up to $148 million.
It even drew more cash from retail investors than fellow listing candidate Dah Sing Banking Group which is tapping the market for $2.3 billion to $2.5 billion.
According to a source, Qin Jia Yuan's retail tranche was 87 times subscribed, freezing $1.28 billion in cash based on the top end of its indicative $1.08 to $1.48 price range.
Despite its much larger offering size, Dah Sing Banking only managed to attract $958 million worth of cash for its retail tranche, which ended up being 3.8 times covered, according to another source.
'Retail investors seem to be enticed to Qin Jia Yuan because of news that many tycoons are subscribing to the shares, even though most of them are not convinced by the spin-off story of Dah Sing,' one broker said.
Market sources did not have any information on the subscription rate for the institutional portion of Qin Jia Yuan's offer but expected that it was very well covered.