www.csua.org/u/jwl -> news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071105/ap_on_bi_ge/china_petrochina_ipo;_ylt=AmTCn57RBNfHZVpupjR2Pl6b.HQA
AP PetroChina triples in Shanghai IPO By ELAINE KURTENBACH, AP Business Writer 2 hours, 10 minutes ago SHANGHAI, China - China's biggest oil and gas company, PetroChina, surged past Exxon Mobil on Monday to become the world's first company worth more than $1 trillion, though most of the company remains in government hands.
Click Here The publicly listed unit of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. Those shares are meant for domestic investors and are generally off-limits to would-be foreign buyers. Chinese investors likewise have limited access to overseas-traded shares -- crimping the leeway for arbitrage between the markets. By other measures, such as earnings, Exxon remains a much larger company. The Chinese company has seen revenues soar amid surging oil prices but has struggled to boost production from its aging domestic oil fields. Like rival Sinopec, it has been squeezed by a widening gap between soaring world crude oil prices and state-controlled prices for oil products in the domestic market. But PetroChina's strong showing was expected all the same. Chinese investors have shown a huge appetite for elite government giants that are seen as proxies for the country's economic boom. However, more than 86 percent of the company's shares outstanding are held by PetroChina's parent company -- part of the government's policy of retaining state ownership of strategically vital industries such as energy. Those shares are unlikely to trade on the market anytime soon. Adding the value of PetroChina's Hong Kong shares, worth about $49 billion, the company's total market capitalization rose to more than $1 trillion. PetroChina will account for nearly a quarter of Shanghai's total market capitalization, displacing banks and other major financial companies, analysts said Monday. Shanghai's benchmark has more than doubled in value this year as investors chased a slew of IPOs by big-name companies, hoping for higher returns than they can earn on bank savings. While the state-run Xinhua News Agency rushed out headlines proclaiming PetroChina the world's most valuable company on Monday, other reports cited top officials expressing alarm over precipitous share-price gains. A notice by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, issued over the weekend, ordered securities funds to avoid "blind expansion" or speculative activities.
Jiang Jiemin, Chairman of PetroChina, left, and Zhu Congjiu, Shanghai Stock Exchange President, right, shake hands after signing ceremony at the IPO ceremony in the Shanghai Stock Exchange in Shanghai, China, Monday Nov. The company's shares are due to begin trading in Shanghai on Nov.
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