China's largest bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, (ICBC) has set a lower-than-expected price for its share offer in Hong Kong and Shanghai but it remains potentially the world's largest ever float, sources and reports said.

After a meeting Saturday in Beijing with its advisers, ICBC set the price range for the Hong Kong Initial Public Offer (IPO) of 35.4 billion H-shares at 2.56-3.07 Hong Kong dollars each (33-39 US cents).

The Shanghai offer of 13 billion A-shares should be priced at exactly the same level in yuan terms.

An industry source told AFP that this pricing level values the company at around 1.9 times its book value -- well below the 2.6 times the bank had originally touted.

There was no indication of why the bank had opted for the lower price range but there had been some critical commentary in the press that ICBC still had major problems to contend with and did not merit being priced so high.

Under the terms of the IPO, the Beijing-based lender can increase the Hong Kong share offer, depending on demand, to 40.7 billion H-shares, with the Shanghai allotment similarly rising to 14.95 billion A-shares.

Taking the top end of the price range indicated, the bank could raise some 18-21 billion dollars in its dual-listing, which could overtake the previous record float of 18.4 billion dollars by Japan's mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo in 1998.

ICBC's share sale makes it the third of China's big four banks to list offshore after China Construction Bank, which floated in Hong Kong last year, and Bank of China, which listed in Hong Kong in June, and then in Shanghai in July.

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