SHARES of Foshan Haitian Flavouring and Food Co. will start trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange today, after the major domestic seasonings producer raised 3.84 billion yuan (US$634 million) in the country’s second-largest initial public offering (IPO) since a freeze on IPOs was lifted.

    In a filing to the Shanghai bourse, Foshan Haitian, the country’s largest flavoring producer by output, said yesterday it would list 74.85 million shares on the exchange.

    China’s securities regulators lifted a freeze on IPOs in December following overhauls aimed at making the country’s IPO system more market-oriented by giving the issuers more freedom in deciding the timing and pricing of their offerings.

    It has allowed more than 50 companies since then to list their shares, and among these Shaanxi Coal Industry Co., one of the country’s largest coal miner, topped the list of the amount raised with its 4 billion yuan offering.

    China shut the door to IPOs in November 2012 as part of the government’s effort to boost confidence among investors who had seen stock prices slide for years. The freeze gave regulators time to overhaul a market in which many new deals had been overpriced in the primary market and subsequently declined.

    Foshan Haitian sold 74.85 million shares, or 10 percent of its enlarged capital, after pricing the deal at 51.25 yuan a share.

    Its IPO price is 31.90 times its 2012 earnings, 34 percent below the average price-to-earnings ratio of its comparable listed peers, according to an earlier filing.

    The company raised 1.92 billion yuan by selling 37.50 million new shares. It also sold 37.35 million existing shares to new investors, raising 1.91 billion yuan.

    Foshan Haitian said its net profit for the first nine months of 2013 was 1.21 billion yuan, up 37 percent from a year earlier. Its revenue for the same period was 6.29 billion yuan.

    It expects its 2013 net profit to be between 1.58 billion yuan and 1.62 billion yuan, up between 30 percent and 35 percent from a year ago. Its net profit was 1.21 billion yuan in 2012.

    (SD-Agencies)