China Telecom Corp surged 34% on its Shanghai debut on Friday, raising $7.3 billion in the world’s biggest stock listing so far this year. Shares of the Chinese Telecom Giant opened 5.7% higher and rose as much as bourse’s 44% limit on new shares before giving up some gains despite being blacklisted by the US government due to alleged links to the Chinese military. The stock ended the session at 6.11 yuan, up from an offer price of 4.53 yuan, in a surge that was conspicuous in a weak market that saw China’s blue-chip index shed nearly 2%.
Li Runze, an analyst at Soochow Securities, stated, “When money is hard to be made elsewhere, newly-listed China Telecom easily becomes a target for speculators.” He also added that the rally was hardly driven by fundamentals as China Telecom’s Hong Kong-listed shares slumped nearly 5% on Friday, trading at just half of the price of their Shanghai counterparts.
