Poor debut for Xiwang as institutional investors stay away

Xiwang Special Steel may have put its mark in the books for being the first Hong Kong initial public offering of size in 2012, but its trading debut will be best forgotten. The company, which raised $171 million from the IPO, fell 19.6% when it hit the market yesterday, setting a poor trend for the listing hopefuls waiting in the wings. The Hang Seng Index dropped 0.8%.

With the IPO market already off to a slow start this year as bankers have found the valuation gap between what investors want to pay and what issuers are prepared to offer tough to bridge, the last thing needed was a deal...