Two of Hong Kong's richest tycoons will each buy almost 130 million US dollars worth of Agricultural Bank of China's initial public offering, which could be the world's biggest.
Li Ka-shing, head of conglomerate Cheung Kong Holdings, and Lee Shau-kee, chief of property giant Henderson Land, have signed on as cornerstone investors, each scooping up a billion Hong Kong dollars (128 million US) worth of shares, Dow Jones Newswires said, citing unnamed sources.
In February, Forbes business magazine ranked Li as the financial hub's richest man with a net worth of 21.3 billion US dollars, followed by Lee with a 19 billion dollar fortune.
Earlier reports have suggested AgBank — the last of China's big four lenders to list — is one track to raise as much as 28 billion US dollars before its shares start trading in Hong Kong and Shanghai next month.
Singapore state investment company Temasek plans to buy as much as 300 million dollars of shares while Middle Eastern sovereign funds Qatar Investment Authority and Kuwait Investment Authority are eyeing at least a billion dollar investment.
There has been speculation that the size of the bank's share sale would be smaller than earlier anticipated due to weak market sentiment and concerns over the profitability of its operations, which focus on rural lending.
The bank was initially expected to raise as much as 30 billion dollars. The world's biggest IPO so far is the 22-billion-dollar offering of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in 2006.
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