Companies

AIA to stop taking fund orders for its IPO earlier

By Bei Hu and Cathy Chan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-10-19 10:48

Pedestrians walk past American International Group Inc's AIA Tower in Hong Kong.[Photo/Agencies]

HONG KONG - AIA Group Ltd's initial public offering (IPO) will stop taking orders from institutional investors two days earlier than planned in the share sale that may be boosted to $20.5 billion, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

The decision was taken because of strong demand for the stock and the time needed to allocate shares in the IPO, the sources said on condition of anonymity because no announcement has been made.

American International Group Inc (AIG) is selling down its stake in its main Asia unit to help repay $182.3 billion in government bailouts. AIG decided to proceed with a previously scrapped listing after Prudential Plc backed out of a deal to buy the unit for $35.5 billion in June.

"It's quite obvious they have good demand from investors," said Binay Chandgothia, the chief investment officer in the Hong Kong office of Principal Global Investors, an asset manager with more than $200 billion of assets under management. "It's a combination of a strong market, a good position of the company and the pricing that's lower than the Prudential bid."

Institutional investors have ordered "mid-single-digit" times the shares on offer even if AIG exercises options to boost the sale to the maximum amount, two of the people said. Patricia Chua, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for AIA, declined to comment.

Related readings:  China's Ping An, CIC eye stakes in AIA  China Life not keen on AIA stake buy  Chinese consortium bids for AIA stake  Prudential gives up on $35.5b AIA deal

The IPO of the company marketing itself as the Asian life insurer with the broadest geographical reach has drawn strong investor interest, AIA Chief Executive Officer Mark Tucker said at a press conference announcing the start of the retail portion of the share sale on Sunday, without giving details.

"The major concern we have is that there are not enough hours in the day to have all the meetings that we need to have," Tucker said. "There's been an incredibly enthusiastic response to this and if we could add another 20 hours a day, that would be perfect."

AIG is selling 5.9 billion existing shares, or a 48.6 percent stake in AIA, at HK$18.38 ($2.37) to HK$19.68 each for as much as HK$115.3 billion, the prospectus said. The New York-based insurer may use options to increase the shares sold to as many as 8.1 billion, or a 67 percent stake, it said.

At the top of the price range, the enlarged sale would fetch $20.5 billion, eclipsing the $16 billion raised by Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd in 2006 as the largest Hong Kong IPO, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The AIA IPO, which will be priced on Friday, comes amid a resurgence of share sales in Asia. Coal India Ltd, the state-owned coal producer, starts selling shares on Monday in the nation's biggest initial share sale that may raise as much as 151.5 billion rupees ($3.4 billion).

Global Logistic Properties Ltd rose as much as 12 percent on its first trading day on Monday after raising S$3.45 billion ($2.7 billion) in Singapore's biggest IPO since 1993.

Bloomberg News