Bank of China said on Monday its public share offering, which ended last weekend, has frozen as much as 540 billion yuan of subscription funds, a record high among companies listed on a mainland stock exchange.

 

The market, however, has anticipated public investors would pour 600 billion to 800 billion yuan of investment into the BOC share offering.

 

It has set a price of 3.08 yuan per share for trading starting on July 5 on the Shanghai bourse, tracking its HK$2.95 pricing for shares that were already offered in Hong Kong late May. BOC shares rose to 3.4 Hong Kong dollars last weekend.

 

Bank of China was the second of the "big four" state banks to go public, following China Construction Bank that listed its shares last October.

 

China is overhauling its state-owned, debt-laden banking sector prior to fully opening its financial market to foreign banks by the end of this year under a WTO commitment, hoping market listings would help streamline the banks' operation.

 

(Xinhua News Agency June 27, 2006)