Companies at a glance

IPO plan

Sichuan Expressway Co, the Hong Kong-listed operator of five Chinese toll roads, hopes to raise as much as 1.8 billion yuan in an initial public offering (IPO) in Shanghai to fund an acquisition from its parent.

The company, based in Chengdu, Sichuan province, plans to sell as many as 500 million new shares in Shanghai at 3.25 yuan to 3.6 yuan each, according to papers filed with Shanghai's stock exchange last week.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission is gradually letting companies go public after investors reacted positively to initial offerings by Guilin Sanjin Pharmaceutical Co and Zhejiang Wanma Cable Co this summer.

Clean-power project

China WindPower Group Ltd, a Hong Kong-listed renewable energy company, signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding to develop 1,500 megawatts of clean-power projects in northeastern China.

The company will build wind turbines in Baicheng in Jilin province, the company said in a statement released by the Hong Kong stock exchange last week. No figure was put on the cost of any future projects.

China, the world's second-biggest energy consumer, will boost its wind power capacity fivefold by 2020 to help fight climate change and reduce its reliance on coal.

Baicheng plans to install turbines with a total capacity of 10,000 megawatts, a statement on China WindPower's website said.

Air China gains

Air China Ltd, the world's largest carrier by market value, said profits for the first six months of this year likely will rise 50 percent based on fuel-hedging gains and an increase in domestic travel.

Air China's domestic passenger numbers rose 18 percent during the first half of 2009, spurred by the elimination of fuel surcharges and also a stronger economy.

The carrier also pared paper losses from fuel-hedging after oil prices jumped 57 percent in the first half of the year.

The Beijing-based airline last year posted the first annual loss since its 2004 listing after reporting unrealized losses of 7.47 billion yuan from wrong-way bets on fuel prices.

Insurance income

China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co, the country's third-largest life insurer by premiums, last week announced that its insurance premium income slightly declined 1.47 percent year-on-year to 53.8 billion yuan during the first six months of 2009.

The Shanghai-based insurer said in a statement that its life insurance premiums in the period from January to June were 35.2 billion yuan, down 9.5 percent from 38.9 billion yuan in the same period last year.

Power generation up

Huadian Power International Corp Ltd announced that it produced 50.1 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in the first six months of this year, up 5.15 percent from the same period last year.

The company said in a statement that on-grid power output in the first six months grew 5.11 percent from a year earlier to 46.6 billion kilowatt-hours

Huadian Power attributed the increase in output to the contribution from newly acquired power plants and to new generators that came online.

In the first six months, China's power generation declined 1.8 percent year on year to 1.62 trillion kilowatt-hours, according to an earlier report from China Knowledge.

(China Daily 07/20/2009 page7)