It may be only January, but investment bankers already have the champagne on ice as they predict this year will be a record for initial public offerings.
Financiers say the money companies raise on the main board this year will easily surpass 2007, when the cash firms raked in from stock sales hit a record HK$290 billion.
Edward Lam, the head of Hong Kong investment banking at Citi, said the number of companies he knew preparing for Hong Kong stock sales was 'massive'.
'We would expect the value of Hong Kong equity offerings to set new records this year,' he said, adding this was partly because some companies were planning mega deals.
United States insurer American International Group is planning to list its Asian unit American International Assurance in Hong Kong, raising up to US$20 billion.
Agricultural Bank of China, the only one of the mainland's Big Four commercial lenders not to have gone public, is also rumoured to be planning a huge stock sale in Hong Kong and Shanghai which bankers say could also raise US$20 billion.
Lam said many mainland firms were preparing to go public because the stock market had soared and company owners expected to get high valuations for their businesses.