Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) may price its initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong at about 1.7 times its net asset value per share, the Shanghai Securities News said Tuesday.

Quoting a document sent by ICBC to government officials for approval, the newspaper said ICBC is leaning towards such a valuation because major international banks are valued at around that level.

Such a valuation would mean a Hong Kong IPO price of between HK$2.70 and HK$2.80 per H share, and the offer may be priced near the top of that range, the newspaper added. Pricing of A shares in the Shanghai part of the offer has not been decided, it said.

ICBC, China¡¯s largest commercial bank, aims to raise as much as US$21 billion by simultaneously listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, with about two-thirds of the funds raised in Hong Kong. The bank aims to complete the offer by Oct. 27, the newspaper said, adding that ICBC had begun contacts with European and U.S. institutional investors over the offer.

In Hong Kong, the bank was expected to offer up to 40 billion shares.

The report said ICBC was taking steps to prevent the kind of collapse in investor demand that Air China faced during its IPO last month but did not provide details.

Air China, the national flagship carrier, was forced to slash its one-billion-dollar share sale in Shanghai by almost 40 percent due to weak investor interest.

The world''s biggest IPO was in 1998, when Japanese NTT DoCoMo telecom operator received 18.4 billion dollars.  -China Daily