The line-up will smash the record held by China Galaxy Securities, which hired 21 banks to arrange its US$1.1bn IPO in May 2013, and underlines the extent of competition for a role on Hong Kong’s biggest listing since AIA went public in 2010.
WH Group will seek approval from the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong tomorrow for its proposed Hong Kong IPO.
There are seven sponsors on the WH Group deal. They are BOC International, CITIC Securities International, DBS, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered and UBS.
The seven banks are also joint global co-ordinators and joint bookrunners for the float with eight other banks. They are Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Rabobank, Barclays, CICC, Deutsche Bank, ICBC International, Credit Suisse and JP Morgan.
CLSA, now a unit of CITIC Securities, is also listed as a joint global co-ordinator and joint bookrunner.
The deal also has 13 other bookrunners. They are Credit Agricole, Natixis, Jefferies, Citigroup, China Merchants Securities, CCB International, Daiwa, Nomura, CMB International, Haitong International, Guosen Securities, HSBC and ABC International.
WH Group is preliminarily scheduled to start premarketing the deal on March 31 and begin bookbuilding on April 7, if it wins approval from the regulator, two sources said earlier.
The company aims to wrap up the transaction before the Easter holidays, according to the sources.
