Shandong International Trust has won approval from the Hong Kong stock exchange for its proposed $300 million listing - the first initial public offering by a mainland trust in more than two decades, IFR reported on Friday.
The company is yet to choose a date to start pre-marketing its deal, the Thomson Reuters publication reported.
Shandong Trust first filed an application for listing a year ago, but that lapsed in April. It refiled its plans in August this year and is looking to raise about $300 million, according to IFR.
Trust companies form part of China’s shadow-banking system and their generally opaque lending and investment activities have come under scrutiny amid growing concerns about the risks posed to the financial system by unregulated lending.
Shandong Trust is the sixth largest trust controlled by a Chinese local government authority, according to its preliminary prospectus. In the filing it reported trust assets worth 254.5 billion yuan ($38.4 billion) as of May 2017.
The last trust companies to list domestically were Shaanxi International Trust and AnXin Trust in 1994.
In February, Shandong Trust received written approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission to list up to 676 million shares in Hong Kong, according to a filing from Shanghai-listed shareholder Luxin Venture Capital Group.
Luxin currently holds 6.25 percent of Shandong Trust’s total issued capital. Lucion Group owns 63 percent and CNPC Assets Management holds 25 percent.
BoCom International, CCB International and Haitong International are joint sponsors.
