China Mengniu Dairy has priced its share placement at $4.95 per share, at the low end of the range, to raise $1.56 billion, according to a market source. On Monday, three major shareholders as well as some of the management of China's largest milk producer offered 315.57 million shares to investors at between $4.95 and $5.05 each, the source said. Although the final pricing, which represented a discount of 3.88 per cent to Mengniu's Monday close of $5.15, was at the low end, a person familiar with the transaction said the demand from Asia specialist long-only funds and current shareholders had been strong. Shares of Mengniu were suspended yesterday. They are scheduled to resume trading today. This is the second time the three shareholders - MS Dairy Holdings, CDH China Fund and Actis China investment - have placed part of their shares. They sold 168.2 million shares at $6.06 each in December.