China Mobile eyes $7.6b Shanghai offering after US delistin

China Mobile is aiming to raise $7.64 billion in a Shanghai share listing, documents filed on Tuesday showed, after the telecoms giant was delisted in New York tensions between Beijing and Washington worsened.

The 48.7 billion yuan initial public offering would be one of the largest on China’s domestic stock markets for a decade, according to a calculation by Bloomberg News, based on the company’s prospectus.

China’s largest wireless carrier by revenue was removed from the New York Stock Exchange this year along with fellow state-owned telecoms firms China Telecom and China Unicom, as part of an executive order by former president Donald Trump.

The prospectus filed with the Shanghai exchange said it plans to issue 845.7 million shares at 57.58 yuan each on Wednesday.

If an over-allotment option is exercised in full, China Mobile could raise as much as $8.78 billion.

The group has said that funds raised will go towards building 5G infrastructure, as well as “smart home” projects and other initiatives.  Some of China’s biggest tech and telecom firms listed on US stock markets in recent decades as they sought access to fresh funding and more developed markets.  But the tide turned as tensions between Beijing and Washington have plummeted in recent years.

China’s government has been encouraging companies to list on domestic exchanges as part of a push to keep big tech players closer to home and help develop the country’s capital markets.

China Mobile’s delisting came as Trump looked to ban US investment in Chinese companies his administration deemed a threat to national security.

China Telecom, the country’s biggest fixed-line operator, debuted in Shanghai in August after raising $7.3 billion in its IPO.

China Unicom has listed shares of a subsidiary in Shanghai since 2002.

In October, US officials told China Mobile to discontinue its services in the country, ending nearly two decades of operations, in a move that Beijing called “malicious suppression” of Chinese companies.

The US Federal Communications Commission said the firm’s “ownership and control by the Chinese government raise significant national security and law enforcement risks”.

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