The successful initial public offering of Hong Kong Economic Times Holdings (HKET) has boosted the confidence of other listing candidates, with mainland watch distributor Xin Yu Hengdeli increasing its fund-raising target to $400 million from $300 million, according to market sources.
'Preliminary investor response to Xin Yu Hengdeli's offering is better than we expected,' said a source familiar with the planned listing, which is scheduled to be launched early next month.
'HKET has aroused investor interest in new offerings and they are now more eager to look at investment opportunities in newcomers.'
The retail tranche of HKET's flotation was 352.5 times covered, one of the highest rates among recent new listings.
The publisher's share price surged 35 per cent on its trading debut on August 2. It closed at $2.30 on Friday, compared with an offering price of $1.70.
AAC Acoustic Technologies, which will begin trading tomorrow, has reported that the retail portion of its $724.3 million offering had been fully covered.
This was in sharp contrast to the lukewarm response to the listings of China Cosco Holdings on June 29 and Guangzhou R&F Properties on July 13.