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Technology Stocks : Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCW, PCWKF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LOGAN12 who wrote (418)	2/21/2000 1:17:00 PM
From: debra vogt	Respond to of 4541

Monday February 21, 6:08 am Eastern Time IPO VIEW-HK's Tom.com IPO fuels tech stock frenzy By Alison Leung HONG KONG, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Pouring petrol on Hong Kong's flaming affair with technology stocks, the initial public offering of Cheung Kong group Internet portal tom.com Ltd prompted long queues for subscription forms for a third straight day on Monday. Although tom.com is not yet fully operational on the web, analysts said the would be investors were attracted by two things -- the company's status as a pure Internet portal play and its association with Hong Kong's most-watched tycoon, Li Ka-shing. Tom.com is 57 percent owned by Li's Cheung Kong (Holdings) Ltd and Hutchison Whampoa Ltd . ``It's a great deal. It's just HK$1.78 (per share),' said Tsui Yat Kit, a 26-year-old unemployed engineer queueing up outside Hang Seng Bank's headquarter in the Central with his father. Tom.com is offering 428 million new shares, or 15 percent of its enlarged issued share capital, at HK$1.48 to HK$1.78 with the final price to be fixed on Tuesday. Application for the shares will be closed on Wednesday and trading in the shares is scheduled to commence on Hong Kong's Growth Enterprise Market on March 1. MASSIVE OVERSUBSCRIPTION SEEN Like many of those queuing for forms, Tsui acknowledged that his chances for getting any shares were slim. Only 10 percent or 42.8 million of the IPO shares are earmarked for public subscription while the remaining 90 percent are reserved for private placement. ``I think in terms of applying for the share offer, it is going to be so massively oversubscribed that you are very unlikely to get any stock,' said Alan Hutcheson, head of research at Pacific Challenge Securities. Analysts are comparing the tom.com subscription mania with Beijing Enterprises Holdings Ltd's IPO in May 1997, which set a record of being more than 1,200 times subscribed. Investors see a fast profit when tom.com shares begin trading. ``Tom.com shares could rise above HK$10 considering the strong performance of Chinadotcom,' Alex Wong, research manager at OSK Securities. Chinadotcom Corp (NasdaqNM:CHINA - news) shares were listed on the U.S. technology dominated Nasdaq market with an offer price of US$20 in July 1999 and closed at US$135.25 on Friday. Francis Leung vice chairman at BNP Prime Peregrine, the global coordinator, sponsor and bookrunner of the tom.com IPO, said they had printed about 1.5 million subscription forms for potential tom.com investors. TOM.COM RIDES THE TIDE ``Internet plays are very popular with investors at the present time,' Hutcheson said. He said tom.com has benefitted from the backing of Cheung Kong, Hutchison and Pacific Century CyberWorks Ltd , which has a five percent stake in tom.com. Those connections have immediately attracted a number of potential partners, such as Internet content providers, to the website, he added. Tom.com is aiming to become a multi-lingual ``mega portal' focusing on delivering Chinese-related content to Internet users worldwide. However, analysts agreed that the young Internet portal had limited assets and it would be difficult to evaluate the company. ``It made a loss of HK$81 million last year,' he said.