By Scott Murdoch and Donny Kwok
HONG KONG (Reuters) -Chinese lithium battery maker CALB Co’s shares opened in line with their HK$38 apiece issue price in the company’s Hong Kong Stock Exchange debut on Thursday.
The company raised $1.28 billion in its initial public offering (IPO), the largest in Hong Kong in 2022.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.07% at the open and is up 5.1% so far this week, heading for the biggest weekly percentage gain since early November 2020.
CALB sold 265.8 million shares and set the price of the stock at the bottom of the HK$38 to HK$51 per share range outlined when the deal was launched.
The deal received a lukewarm response from investors with retail shareholders not taking up to their full entitlement of shares on offer, CALB’s listing documents showed.
The institutional portion of the IPO was 2.11 times covered which was well below the traditional subscription rates of Hong Kong IPOs.
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch and Donny Kwok; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Christopher Cushing)
