Report: COSCO liner-port business to raise up to $2 billion in June
An initial public offering of COSCO Holdings, the newly formed liner shipping, port and container leasing arm of state-controlled China Ocean Shipping Co., is planned for June on the Hong Kong stock exchange and will raise HK$11.7 billion ($1.5 billion) to HK$15.6 billion ($2 billion), the Hong Kong daily The Standard said in a report, quoting anonymous sources.
If COSCO succeeds in raising $2 billion from the market, this will be twice the amount gathered by its arch competitor China Shipping Group through last year’s IPO of China Shipping Container Lines, which does not include port and leasing activities.
In March, COSCO started formal procedures to introduce COSCO Holdings to the Hong Kong exchange through a listing. COSCO Holdings will act as an umbrella for the group’s wholly owned container carrier, COSCO Container Lines, and for its partly owned, Hong Kong-listed port and container leasing subsidiary, COSCO Pacific.
It is not yet clear how COSCO will use the proceeds of the planned IPO.