A Sino-Pakistani joint venture tire manufacturer has debuted on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) in a move market participants described as the first listing by a Chinese-invested company on the country's bourse and a milestone in the deepening integration of industrial and financial cooperation between the two nations.
Service Long March Tyres Ltd — a JV between Pakistan's Servis Group and China's Chaoyang Long March Tyre Co Ltd — was listed on the PSX on Monday. Chinese shareholders held about 43 percent of the company before the offering.
Shares of SLM opened at 21.95 Pakistani rupees ($0.079) on Monday, up 10.03 percent from its issue price of 19.95 rupees, and remained at the upper limit of the day's trading band during early trading, the PSX website said, pointing to strong investor demand following the heavily oversubscribed offering.
The initial public offering raised 7.77 billion Pakistani rupees, making it the largest private-sector IPO in Pakistan's capital market history. The book-building process attracted bids worth 69.4 billion rupees, representing an oversubscription of 16.7 times and setting records for both subscription amount and subscription speed on the exchange.
