Retail investors opt out of Postal Savings Bank of China's Shanghai listing

China’s biggest bank by branches is seeking up to $4b in proceeds.

Some investors of the Postal Savings Bank of China (PSBC) had opted out of paying for 3% of shares on offer in the bank’s Shanghai listing, reports Reuters.

PSBC is China’s biggest bank by number of branches. It is seeking up to $4b (RMB28.45b) in the first part of the share sale, which was 79 times oversubscribed - a low level as mainland Chinese share offerings are often thousands of times oversubscribed.

A greenshoe option of 15% of shares, which needs to be exercised within 30 days of listing, could take funds raised to $4.7b.

PSBC said in a statement late on Tuesday that nearly all of those who decided not to take up allocated shares were retail investors.

Dai Zhifeng, an analyst at Zhongtai Securities, noted that the problem lies in general investor wariness towards banking stocks rather than a reflection of PSBC’s financial health.

Here’s more from Reuters.