CGN Power, the mainland’s biggest nuclear energy company by installed capacity, has raised HK$ 23.8 billion dollars in one of the hottest initial public offerings this year. Shares were 287.3 times oversubscribed and were priced at HK$ 2.78 each, at the high end of expectations. Shares start trading on Wednesday. The amount raised falls just short of the US$ 3.1 billion in January’s IPO by HK Electric Investments, a unit of Li Ka-shing controlled Power Assets, in what remains the largest listing this year. In an unusual step, CGN gave full allocation to smaller retail investors who applied for minimum 1,000-share lots. This meant fewer shares were available for institutional and private banking clients. The shares were priced at a price—to-earnings ratio of 17.4, in line with clean-energy peers such as China Longyuan Power, the mainland’s largest wind power producer, which trades at 16 to 19 times earnings. CGN has agreed to acquire from its parent company, China General Nuclear Power Group, a 41 per cent stake in the Taishan nuclear power station, which has two units with a total capacity of 3.5 GW under construction. That would raise its stake to 51 per cent. The IPO comes ahead of a reported merger between CGN and China National Nuclear Corporation as part of an overall restructuring of the mainland’s state-run nuclear industry. Eighteen cornerstone investors, including US hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management and Minmetals Capital, hold a combined 42.1 per cent of CGN’s issued shares.
