Top management has decided to pursue a listing there and Baosteel has launched an international search for accountants and lawyers to help it meet U.S. listing standards, the sources said.

A worker operates a machine at a Baosteel factory in Shanghai February 25, 2005. Baosteel Group, China's biggest steel maker, is preparing to list core steel assets in New York, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters on Wednesday. [Reuters]

Global investment banks have started pitching Baosteel to underwrite the offer, banking sources said.

"Top management of Baosteel made the basic decision in November to launch an IPO in New York," said a source close to the company who is familiar with the preparations.

No time frame for a New York initial public offering has been set. Because of the large amount of accounting work and other documentation needed, the actual listing of Baosteel shares in New York may not occur by the end of this year, bankers said.

The amount of money to be raised in the offer has not been fixed, but it could be well over a $1 billion. Baoshan Iron and Steel Co. (600019.SS), the group's Shanghai-listed arm which controls almost all its steel assets, had a market capitalization of $21.6 billion on Wednesday.

The group has considered an overseas listing at various times over more than half a decade, but each time suspended those plans because of stock market or industry conditions.

Analysts believe now would be an ideal time to pursue a New York listing because of surging foreign demand for Chinese assets and the Chinese steel industry's recovery in the past year.

"Overseas listing has always been our goal. Our company is still looking for good opportunities to go public overseas, so as to become an international corporation," group president Xu Lejiang told Reuters in an interview last September.

Some investment bankers seeking business with Baosteel said it might simultaneously list in Hong Kong as well as New York, as other Chinese firms have done, but this could not be confirmed.

1

2