First Asia Capital Investment, a fund management firm set up just three months ago, is hoping to raise HK$22 million from a main-board listing.
Bucking the volatility of the stock market, the company is selling 44 million new shares at 50 HK cents each.
The listing will allow the firm to make its maiden investments in equity securities, convertible notes, preference shares, options, warrants and futures contracts.
Chairman and major shareholder Albert Li Sze-tang said yesterday: 'The weak stock market represents a golden opportunity to invest in laggards, which means the upside of return is potentially higher than the downside.'
Mr Li said First Asia planned to invest 50 per cent of the proceeds in listed companies, 40 per cent in unlisted companies and the remainder in cash-related instruments.
Two key investment criteria were that the maximum amount of each investment averaged HK$4 million and that the stake size in a company was below 30 per cent.
First Asia intends to achieve short to medium-term capital gains, which means less than one year to five years, by investing in Hong Kong and mainland firms.