Update | China’s Huatai Securities up 5 per cent in Hong Kong debut

Shares of mainland brokerage HTSC, better known as Huatai Securities, rose almost 5 per cent in its market debut on Monday as investors piled into Hong Kong’s biggest initial public offering for the year.

Huatai was trading around HK$26 per share at 10:05 am in Hong Kong.

The company raised US$4.5 billion in the share sale in Hong Kong after pricing the deal at HK$24.8, the top end of the range between HK$20.68 and HK$24.8. The Hong Kong listing makes the biggest share sale in the Asia Pacific region since the US$4.9 billion Australia listing of state-owned health insurer Medibank Private in November last year.

"The performance of its IPO was within his expectations given the bullish mood in the Hong kong and mainland stock markets," Huatai Securities chairman Wu Wanshan said at the listing ceremony.

Wu said "Huatai aims to enforce risk management control of the stock lending and margin financing businesses," after several other brokerages announced a tightening of margin lending which contributed to last Thursday’s sell-off in China’s equity markets.

Value partner chairman Cheah Cheng Hye told SCMP that Huatai is one of the few brokerages that has edges in technology, internet, mobile. Valurpartner is one of a group of cornerstone investors in Huatai.