Dah Sing Banking Corp narrowly met its targeted capital raising from big investors, sources close to the bank's initial public offering said yesterday, raising subscriptions of just 1.1 times the shares on offer to institutions. The shares will begin trading on Wednesday, when another IPO candidate, Qin Jia Yuan Media Services, will make its debut. Qin Jia Yuan yesterday priced its shares in line with expectations at $1.28, allowing it to raise $128 million, sponsor DBS Asia Capital said. Sources said the public tranche of Dah Sing's offer closed 3.8 times subscribed, raising $3.19 billion in an IPO that sought between $2.28 billion and $2.49 billion. Following the modest interest in the issue, the price was fixed by the issuer yesterday at the bottom of the range and will raise $2.28 billion, which the mid-cap lender said would be used to fund acquisitions. A spokesman for HSBC, joint book runner with CLSA, said: 'The deal was completed with a high quality book in difficult markets.' A banker close to the offer said the decision to price the bank's shares at the bottom of the range meant they would start trading at a multiple of 1.65 times book value. 'Wing Hang Bank, the closest comparable rival, is trading at 1.95 times book. So essentially it is coming in at a big discount to a bank against which its parent had traditionally traded at a premium,' he said. Qin Jia Yuan will come to the market at a share price multiple of 10.66 times forecast earnings for the year ending September and a market capitalisation of $512 million unless it elects to increase the offer by up to 15 per cent if an over-allotment option is exercised. The price was fixed in the middle of the $1.08 to $1.48 indicative range after sources said the retail offer of 10 million shares was about 87 times subscribed. The institutional tranche, which will be cut to 60 per cent from 90 per cent after a reallocation of shares to the retail tranche, was also well covered, partly due to 'sizeable subscriptions' from a number of tycoons, sources said. Because of their heavy involvement in the deal, Qin Jia Yuan chose not to disclose the subscription level on the institutional side, they said, but added the interest was strong enough that the price could have been fixed at the top of the range had the firm wished to do so. 'The company chose not to do that in order to leave room for some upside when the stock starts trading,' one source said. 'This is probably a smart move,' said Alex Tang, research director at Core Pacific-Yamaichi International, noting that the market had been averse to buying newcomers that seemed to be priced more expensively than their peers. Notable examples are Ping An Insurance (Group) and China Shipping Container Lines, which are now both below their IPO prices, while instant-messaging provider Tencent Holdings was snapped up on the basis of it being cheaper that its mainland competitors.
