China Unicom and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter - bookrunners of Unicom's upcoming IPO - have decided to raise the indictaive pricing range for Unicom's pending IPO. The decision was made at around 8pm New York time on Friday June 9.
The range has been increased from HK$11.50 - HK$14.50 to HK$13.80 - HK$16.00 - an increase of just over 10%. Theáraised range comes at the end of a very successful US leg of the global roadshow. With the team now in London ready to meet European investors, the book is already said to be 1.4 times subscribed.
Unicom, China's second-biggest telecoms company, could raise as much as $5.15 billion in a dual listing in New York and Hong Kong in what could be Asia's biggest IPO ever outside Japan. In its prospectus, Unicom said it will sell 2.46 billion shares or 20.2% of the company. Of those, about 2.34 billion will be sold as American depositary shares. There is also a greenshoe - or over-allotment option - of 368.9 million shares, bringing the total number of shares on the block to 2.496 billion.
Over the past three weeks, the share price of China Telecom, which is the nearest comparable stock to China Unicom, has gone up by 35%.ááWith the increase in the offer price of Unicom, the stock is still likely to be priced at a discount to its larger rival, which is a key consideration for most investors, according to sources close to the deal.
The deal is penciled to price on June 16. The stock will start trading on June 21 on the Hong Kong and New York Stock Exchanges.
