Shares in Samling Global, a Malaysian-based timber maker, rose by a less than expected 15.38 per cent on their debut yesterday, which may discourage retail investors from subscribing to upcoming initial public offerings.
Samling surged as much as 30.29 per cent in the morning but closed at HK$2.40 compared with the offered price of HK$2.08. About 839.7 million shares worth HK$2.17 billion changed hands.
'Samling should be worth HK$2.70 but it failed to stand firm above this price because of the souring market sentiment,' said Danny Yan, a vice-president at Citic Capital.
Samling, whose chief executive is Yaw Chee Ming (above), raised HK$2.18 billion selling 1.05 billion shares priced at the top end of the indicative range.
The volatile market might hurt other share sales, market watchers said. 'Retail response to Intime [IPO] was much chilled than before,' said Ben Kwong Man-bun, an associate director at KGI (Asia).
Local brokerages yesterday received a total of HK$1.5 billion margin orders for Intime Department Store, a Zhejiang-based department store chain.