Hong Kong IPO market now world's busiest

Brunei News.Net
Friday 20th October, 2006

The Hong Kong financial market is booming with the city's initial public offerings this year making it the busiest in the world.

Next week Industrial & Commercial Bank of China is expected to raise as much as $16 billion in Hong Kong, as well as $6 billion in Shanghai, The New York Times reported Friday. And in June Bank of China's IPO in Hong Kong raised about $10 billion.

Thomson Financial says there has been $40 billion worth of initial public offerings placed on London exchanges this year, while $30 billion in IPOs were sold in New York. Hong Kong has had $17 billion to $24 billion, even without the up to $16 billion from ICBC.

It's not obvious as to what the next $10 billion trade is but, having said that, we continue to think that there will be meaningful IPO volume coming from China, said Gokul Laroia, a managing director at Morgan Stanley and its head of global capital markets in Asia.

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