KKR-backed COFCO Meat plunges 17.5 pct in afternoon trade in HK debut

ITOHAM YONEKYU HOLDINGS

01/11/2016 06:22

HONG KONG, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Shares of Chinese pork producer 
COFCO Meat Holdings Ltd  1610.HK , backed by a private equity 
group including KKR & Co  KKR.N , plunged in their trading debut 
on Tuesday, underscoring tepid investor demand for the deal.     
    COFCO Meat was down 17.5 percent in afternoon trade, after 
dropping as much as 24 percent earlier, compared with a 1.2 
percent gain in the benchmark Hang Seng index  .HSI . 
    COFCO Meat raised HK$1.95 billion ($252 million) from a Hong 
Kong IPO, after pricing shares at the bottom of its indicative 
range. China's state-owned COFCO Corp is the company's largest 
shareholder, with other main shareholders including KKR and 
private equity firms Boyu Capital, Baring Private Equity Asia 
and Singapore's Temasek Holdings  TEM.UL .  
    Retail investors bought only 0.4 times the number of shares 
on offer in the IPO, while the institutional tranche was 
moderately oversubscribed, COFCO Meat said in a filing on 
Monday. 
    COFCO Meat said it would use the proceeds to build new hog 
farms, develop its sales network and repay bank borrowings. 
     
($1 = 7.7548 Hong Kong dollars) 
 
 (Reporting by Donny Kwok; Editing by Tom Hogue) 
 ((elzio.barreto@thomsonreuters.com;)(852)(2843-1608; Reuters 
Messaging: elzio.barreto.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: COFCO MEAT HLDG STOCKS/