Postal Savings Bank of China raised $7.4 billion in the world’s biggest initial public offering in two years. The state-run bank, China’s sixth-largest by assets, had offered its shares for 4.76 Hong Kong dollars. Nearly 80% of the IPO was preordered by a group of six largely state-owned Chinese companies, including a shipbuilder, a power company and a port operator, that had agreed to buy shares even before the price was set. The stock will begin trading in Hong Kong soon. China’s post office had offered savings deposit services since 1919, but the bank was not split off as a separate entity until 2007.
