Recruiting in China

THE Bank of Beijing said today it will open subscriptions to retail investors next Tuesday (September 11) for its initial public offering of 1.2 billion A-shares in Shanghai.

The third to-be-listed Chinese city commercial lender will sell up to 840 million shares, or 70 percent of the offering, to retail investors. The remaining 360 million shares, or 30 percent of the offering, will be sold to institutional investors, the Beijing-based bank said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange today.

Institutional investors can subscribe to the shares during the two-day period ending next Tuesday.

The bank will announce a price range next Monday and post the final price next Wednesday.

``The bank is among the top 15 players among the country's 110-plus city commercial banks,'' said Qiu Zhicheng, a Haitong Securities Co analyst.

The bank said in the prospectus yesterday that it will conduct an H-share IPO at an appropriate time after completing the A-share sale, without giving a timetable or sale scale.

Any sale of H-shares would need approval for existing shareholders.

The lender gained approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission for the Shanghai share sale at the end of August. The listed shareholders of the lender, including Tongfang Co and UFSoft Co, all surged on the bank's announcement it would go public.

Citic Securities Co and its affiliate, China Securities Co, are the lead underwriters for Bank of Beijing's A-share listing. Shanghai-listed Citic Securities holds a 60 percent stake in China Securities.

Bank of Ningbo and Bank of Nanjing -became China's first two listed city banks early last month. The two banks listed on July 19, after raising a combined 11.07 billion yuan (US$1.47 billion).