Evergrande Lifts Size of Hong Kong IPO by 7% to $834 Million

"Evergrande Lifts Size of Hong Kong IPO by 7% to $834 Million | AboutHK.Com - More Information About HK"

Bloomberg Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd., the largest Chinese developer by third-quarter sales, increased the size of its Hong Kong initial public offering by 7 percent to as much as HK$6.46 billion ($834 million). The Guangzhou-based developer and shareholders are offering a combined 1.61 billion shares at HK$3 to HK$4 each, the company said in a prospectus today. In an Oct. 19 document e-mailed to fund managers, Evergrande was to raise up to HK$6.05 billion by selling a combined 1.51 billion shares in the same price range. Evergrande executives didn’t give a reason for the increase at a press briefing today. Volatile stock markets prompted the company to abort an attempt to raise as much as HK$16.6 billion in March 2008 in what would then have been the largest Hong Kong IPO by a Chinese property company. “The international capital markets improved, so our investors cut their holdings to support our IPO,” Evergrande Chief Executive Officer Xia Haijun told Hong Kong reporters via videoconference from Singapore today. The developer is joining competitors including Excellence Real Estate Group Ltd. and Yuzhou Properties Co. in tapping this year’s stock rally to raise money. Joseph Lau, chairman of Chinese Estate Holdings Ltd., and Cheng Yu-tung, the billionaire chairman of New World Development Co., will each take $50 million worth of shares locked up for six months as cornerstone investors in Evergrande, the prospectus said. Debut The shares are scheduled to be priced on Oct. 29, with trading to debut on Nov. 5, the prospectus said. Of the shares on offer, 1 billion are newly issued, according to the Evergrande prospectus. Profit for 2009, including investment-property revaluation, is expected to rise to 1.03 billion yuan from 632.4 million yuan last year, the prospectus said. Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BOC International (Holdings) Ltd., Credit Suisse Group AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are managing the sale. Evergrande beat domestic rivals in terms of third-quarter revenue and area sold, according to a statement from CRIC (China) Information Technology Co. CRIC didn’t give Evergrande’s ranking for the same period a year earlier. To contact the reporter on this story: Chia-Peck Wong in Hong Kong at cpwong@bloomberg.net This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it