China Nuclear Engineering given green light for listing

Offering set to issue up to 525 million shares and raise 1.8 billion yuan

China Nuclear Engineering Corp, the country's major nuclear construction giant, has got approval for an initial public offering.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission said in a statement that CNEC will issue no more than 525 million shares on the A-share market, accounting for one-fifth of the total shares after the IPO.

CNEC, which claimed to be the only company working nonstop in the nuclear construction industry for the past three decades, still has to wait for a final permit released by CSRC, which is likely to be given on the second half of this year, experts said.

The offering is set to raise 1.8 billion yuan ($286 million), CNEC said earlier, and it plans to use the raised funds for nuclear power projects, purchase of nuclear construction equipment, and nuclear engineering research projects.

The company's net profit was 913 million yuan last year, an increase of 24.4 percent compared to a year earlier.

The Beijing-based company has completed the construction of nuclear islands of 24 nuclear units in the sites such as Hongyan River of Liaoning province, Taishan of Guangdong province and Sanmen of Zhejiang province.

The company had been preparing for its listing in 2010, but that the process was delayed by Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011.

CNEC has developed its own nuclear technology high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, an indigenous nuclear technology, jointly with Tsinghua University.

In 2015, it signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia to promote this homegrown fourth-generation nuclear technology in the Middle East country.

Gu Jun, president and general manager of CNEC, said the agreement was a major step toward the nuclear export, and will bring other possibilities for nuclear cooperation between China and other partners along the Belt and Road Initiative, which includes more than 60 economies along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

To cash in on the country's trillion-dollar industry, Chinese nuclear power companies are all flocking to the capital market to finance their nuclear power projects both at home and abroad.

China General Nuclear Power Group, the country's largest nuclear operator, listed its assets of applied nuclear science and technology on the A-share market through acquisition of China Dalian International Cooperation.

lvchang@chinadaily.com.cn