CHINA Telecom Corp. surged 34.88 percent on its Shanghai debut Friday, defying a bearish market after raising US$7.3 billion in the world’s biggest stock listing so far this year.

Shares of the Chinese telecom giant opened 5.7 percent higher and rose as much as the bourse’s 44 percent limit on new shares before giving up some gains.

The stock ended the session at 6.11 yuan, up from an offer price of 4.53 yuan, in a surge that was conspicuous in a weak market that saw China’s blue-chip index shed nearly 2 percent.

“When money is hard to be made elsewhere, newly-listed China Telecom easily becomes the target for speculators,” said Li Runze, an analyst at Soochow Securities.

The rally was hardly driven by fundamentals, he added, as China Telecom’s Hong Kong-listed shares slumped nearly 5 percent Friday, trading at just half of the price of their Shanghai counterparts.

Liam Zhou, founder of Shanghai-based hedge fund Minority Asset Management, said that in the short term, China Telecom’s Shanghai share price will also likely draw support from the so-called “green shoe” over-allotment mechanism, as well as its State shareholders.

The deal is the biggest A-share listing since PetroChina Co.’s US$8.9 billion Shanghai float in 2007, according to Refinitiv data.

China Telecom had raised 47.1 billion yuan (US$7.3 billion) in Shanghai as it broadened its funding channel at home.

In its Shanghai offering, China Telecom, the country’s largest fixed-line telecom operator, attracted a score of strategic investors, including tech giant Huawei, data security company DBAPPSecurity Co. and Bilibili Inc.

The debut follows a growing number of U.S.-listed Chinese mainland companies that are selling shares publicly in Hong Kong or on the mainland amid Sino-U.S. tensions.

(SD-Agencies)