Austar heats up Hong Kong IPO market with heavily oversubscribed float
Engineering services provider boosts size of HK tranche in float that raises a net HK$339 million
Austar Lifesciences saw huge demand that put its initial public offering about 1,250 times oversubscribed, prompting it to increase the size of its public offer.
The strong demand made the stock the city's highest-profile listing this year as investors' interest almost rivalled that of Tom.com's offering, which was 2,000 times oversubscribed in February 2000.
In its regulatory filing yesterday, Austar said 50 million shares that were initially available under its international placing have been reallocated to the Hong Kong tranche, increasing the number of shares for public subscription to 62.5 million shares from 12.5 million.
The size of the float remained at 125 million shares.
The shares are scheduled to start trading today.
Headquartered in Beijing, Austar expected to raise HK$339.3 million from the global offering, based on an offer price of HK$3.12 per share, after deducting underwriting fees, commissions and other related expenses.