ICBC plans IPOs in Shanghai and HK

China's largest commercial lender, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), is planning a dual listing on the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges on October 27 2006. The offering could raise up to US$21 billion and become the world's largest initial public offering (IPO) to date, surpassing the US$18.4 billion record-breaking share sale by Japan's NTT DoCoMo in 1998.

ICBC has set aside 35.4 billion shares for its H-share sale in Hong Kong and another 17.7 billion A-shares for sale on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the South China Morning Post reports.

The H-shares will represent 10.6% of the bank's enlarged share base, consisting of 20% existing shares and 80% new shares. A majority of the H-share offering has been reserved for international institutional investors, with only 5% to be made available to the public. A-shares will account for 6% of the bank's enlarged share base, but the proportion of shares to be allocated to institutional investors and to the public is unknown.