* Seeks shareholder permission for possible China listing
* Would seek to avoid big discount for new shares listed
* Listing would burnish brand in tough market -analysts
* China listing hot topic in German boardrooms
(Adds lawyer, analyst comment)
By Jonathan Gould and Alexander Hübner
FRANKFURT, March 29 (Reuters) – German insurer Allianz SE
took a step towards a possible stock market listing in
China, leading what could be a wave of placements by German
companies seeking to attract investors in the world’s
second-biggest economy.
Europe’s largest insurer will seek shareholder permission to
list new shares on a stock exchange in China, it said in the
agenda for its May 9 annual general meeting, adding: “The price
for the issuance of the new shares may not be significantly
below the stock market price”.
Allianz shares closed down 2.3 percent at 89.30 euros.
A listing could help to burnish the Allianz brand in China,
which is seen as a complex, competitive market for retail
insurers, and could potentially bolster cross-selling or
partnership deals with local companies, analysts said.
“It’s a signal to the Chinese government that Allianz has
come to stay,” said one analyst, who declined to be named.
Rival insurers such as Prudential Plc and
AIA Group Ltd are already listed in Hong Kong, while
Shanghai’s exchange has yet to open its doors to foreign
companies.
Dual listings have been a hot topic for months in German
board rooms.
“We are seeing heightened interest at German companies for
secondary listings in China, which is opening up more to foreign
companies,” said Herbert Harrer, a partner specialised in
capital market law at Linklaters in Frankfurt.
INTERNATIONAL BOARD
Financial market sources told Reuters last year that several
German blue-chip companies were mapping out a listing in China,
with sporting goods maker Adidas as well as carmakers
Volkswagen and Daimler among the names
they mentioned, though the companies denied it at the time.
On Wednesday, German postal services company Deutsche Post
also said it is considering listing its shares abroad
to obtain a more diverse investor base.
Multinationals including HSBC , Coca Cola
, Standard Chartered and Unilever have
expressed interest in a listing on Shanghai’s planned
international board to tap a booming number of Chinese investors
and increasing wealth in the fast-growing economy.
Despite the growing interest, talk of the Shanghai
international board has been around for almost a decade, but it
has been delayed many times over problems ranging from worries
about hot money inflows to the global financial crisis.
“There are intensive discussions about the international
board in Shanghai at the moment and there is now more visibility
on what the Shanghai stock exchange will demand of candidates,”
Linklater’s Harrer said.
Listing in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of
China with separate financial regulations and legal system,
would be more straightforward and Allianz could follow in the
footsteps of Prudential, whose secondary listing was in 2010.
A listing in China would not be Allianz’s fist experience on
overseas exchanges. The company delisted its American Depositary
Shares from the New York Stock Exchange in 2009, after nearly a
decade in the U.S. market.
(Additional reporting by Elzio Barreto in Hong Kong; Editing by
Erica Billingham and David Holmes)
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