AIA gains 17.1% on day one, greenshoe exercised

In light of the offering price and the massive demand for the initial public offering, AIA Group’s 17.1% gain on the first day of trading was perhaps not a huge surprise, but still noteworthy for a listing of this size. And the bookrunners were so confident that the gains will be sustainable that they decided to exercise the greenshoe in full after the close.

This means the deal size was increased to $20.5 billion, making the pan-Asia life insurer the third largest IPO in the world ever, behind Agricultural Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which raised $22.1 billion and $21.9 billion respectively. The deal had already claimed the records as...