Lackluster market debut for big Chinese bank
Agricultural Bank of China, a bank with more customers than the entire U.S. population, made a lackluster debut in Shanghai on Thursday.
During its first day of trading, shares of Agricultural Bank rose a modest 0.8%, ending at 2.70 yuan.
As one of China’s largest lenders, expectations had been for Agricultural Bank to make a bigger splash than it did.
In what is one of the largest IPOs in history, the Beijing-based lender raised $19.2 billion from investors. It sold 25.4 billion shares in Hong Kong for $0.4107 per share, totaling $10.43 billion. Its Shanghai stock, which totaled 22.2 billion shares, was priced at $0.3955 a share, raising approximately $8.78 billion.
The bank plans to list its shares on exchanges in Hong Kong on Friday.
Agricultural Bank will not trade on a U.S. exchange, but Wall Street investors are keeping a close eye on the lender for any hints of whether China’s broader economy and stock market are showing signs of cooling off no faxing payday loans.
Along those lines, China’s government announced Thursday that its gross domestic product in the second quarter rose at an annualized 10.3% pace. While that is still obviously a healthy rate of growth, it’s a bit slower than the first quarter of this year.
With nearly 24,000 branches and a customer base of approximately 320 million, Agricultural Bank is poised to grow as both the Chinese banking system and domestic consumers become more sophisticated.
CNNMoney.com’s David Ellis contributed to this report.