Wisely, it did not set a date or a capital target other than to say it would earmark 7.7 billion yuan of the proceeds to pay for vessels already ordered and to buy Cosco Logistics from its parent.

Should it try to make the placement - equal to 20 per cent of its enlarged share capital - in the next six months, the heavy seas it would face would make the swells it braved 15 months ago during its scaled-down H-share listing look like ripples in a pond.

Cosco's H-share listing in June last year was propped up by strong institutional support and the injection of a 52 per cent stake in its pure port play, Cosco Pacific, which was expected to inject a modicum of earnings stability into a stock that otherwise would have been at the mercy of a notoriously cyclical shipping industry.

The local listing on June 30 marked the end of an interim period when Cosco's container shipping line's profit soared 42.3 per cent to 2.77 billion yuan and profit margin rose to 14.9 per cent.

But the public got spooked by the number of new ships poised to slide out of the world's shipyards, forcing Cosco to halve the retail tranche and lean on loyal institutional investors, many from Hong Kong. Offshoots of Hutchison Whampoa, Henderson Land Development and Temasek bought 32 per cent of the institutional tranche for about US$400 million, but the IPO was still priced at the lowest end of the indicative range, HK$4.25 a share.

In retrospect, those were the good old days.

The value of the shares fell on opening and has yet to reclaim the dizzying heights of listing day, closing yesterday at HK$3.59. Nor are they likely to before the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

China Cosco Holdings last month revealed its attributable profit had fallen 64.7 per cent to 978 million yuan this year; as the expected influx of capacity drove down freight rates and combined with high bunker fuel prices to erode its margin to 5.29 per cent.

Moreover, shipowners have not stopped ordering vessels.

Perhaps most worryingly for any capital-raising aspirations Cosco has are the growing signs that US consumption is slowing and home prices were down for the first time in 10 years in August.

Economists have lowered their expectations for GDP growth in the US next year, with HSBC just last week slashing its forecast more than a third to 1.9 per cent.

This does not bode well for Asian exporters or for the lines such as Cosco which move their goods to the US market. The projected slowdown next year will come as carriers are expected to pile some 2.3 million teu (20-foot equivalent units) of new capacity onto the transpacific trade lanes, increasing supply about 11.3 per cent, according to Citigroup data.

The trade lanes between Asian and Europe are expected to be even less attractive for carriers with some 2.99 million more teu crowding the seas, up 18.7 per cent year on year, the bank said.

Granted, there are some positives for the industry, such as the recent decline in oil price.

But it is hard to see public sentiment backing Cosco's A-share proposal and it remains to be seen whether the traditional corporate loyalists will support the offering, especially if it asks the market to buy shares at no less than 90 per cent of Cosco's H-share value.

China lately has been increasing the pressure for state-owned H shares to complete their dual listings in Shanghai and help expedite the country's share reforms. But now is not the time for Cosco.