Davis Polk & Wardwell and King & Wood Mallesons are advising on a $3.6 billion Hong Kong initial public offering by China state-owned insurance company People’s Insurance Co. (Group) of China Ltd.
The issuer is planning to sell almost seven billion new shares, which represents about 17 percent of the company’s enlarged share capital. 95 percent of those shares will be offered to institutional investors while the remainder will be made available to retail investors in Hong Kong. Proceeds from the offering will be used to strengthen the company’s capital and support business growth.
PICC has life insurance, health insurance and asset management units. It also has a Hong Kong unit—PICC Property and Casualty Co. Ltd.
The offering, if successful, will be the largest Hong Kong IPO by a mainland Chinese company since 2010 and could mark a revival of capital markets activity in the Asian financial capital, which led the world in IPOs from 2009 through 2011. According to Dealogic, new listings in Hong Kong have raised $6.2 billion this year, the lowest amount since 2003.
Davis Polk Beijing partner Li He and Hong Kong partner Antony Dapiran are leading the firm’s team advising PICC on Hong Kong and U.S. law. King & Wood Mallesons Beijing partners Yang Xiaolei and Su Zheng are acting for the issuer on Chinese law.
Slaughter and May is representing underwriters including China International Capital Corp., Credit Suisse Group, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and HSBC Holdings Plc.
Email: jseah@alm.com.
