Agricultural Bank of China has said the Hong Kong portion of its flotation was nearly six times oversubscribed, but did not indicate if it would exercise an over-allotment option.
The lender said in a statement that it had received a total of 117,176 bids for 7.46 billion shares by the application deadline on July 6, equivalent to about 5.87 times of the total number of shares initially available for the Hong Kong part of the public offering.
AgBank, which will start trading in Hong Kong on Friday following its debut in Shanghai today, is on track to raise a record $22.1 billion in what is shaping up to be the world's largest initial public offering (IPO) of shares.
But the lender has not indicated whether it will sell additional shares under over-allotment options in the listing - a key factor in determining whether it sets an IPO record.
A strong start will mean AgBank will fully exercise its over-allotment options by selling an additional portion of up to 15% of the number of shares initially issued for the IPO.
The lender - the last of China's 'Big Four' state banks to go public - drew almost a dozen heavyweight cornerstone investors for the Hong Kong listing, including Qatar's sovereign investment fund, British bank Standard Chartered and Hong Kong's richest tycoon, Li Ka-shing.
