It did take a while, but yesterday copper miner China Nonferrous Mining Corp CNMC finally priced its initial public offering slightly above the bottom of the range to raise HK$1.91 billion $247 million. The pricing came as the Hong Kong stock market eked out a modest gain for the first time in four days, but neither of these two developments changes the fact that the appetite for IPOs is close to rock bottom.
Indeed, five weeks after it started pre-marketing, Chinalco Mining yesterday decided to push back its Hong Kong IPO, probably until after summer, due to the weak market conditions. Once it returns, the deal...