Huaneng Renewables, which is the renewables division of China’s biggest power company Huaneng, was planning to launch its IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with the aim of raising $1.27 billion.
Huaneng said unpredictable market conditions meant an offering would not be in the best interests of its investors.
However, insiders close to the company claimed the IPO had failed to interest a sufficient number of subscribers and Huaneng wanted to avoid issuing shares at the bottom end of the price range.
The company said it would restart the IPO when the market improves. Insiders said that would be in the first quarter of next year.
Huaneng has not been alone in taking the decision to postpone. Over the past month, companies from a number of sectors have cancelled $4.4 billion of IPOs in Hong Kong.
Difficult market conditions were also behind Goldwind’s decision to withdraw its IPO in June.
Three months later, Goldwind managed to restart the Hong Kong offering, but only after marking down nearly 20% of the offer price.
Chinese new energy companies, many heavily in debt, are inclined to launch IPOs in Hong Kong in the hope to attracting increasingly picky international investors.
Huaneng Renewables is the third largest wind project operator in China, after Longyuan and Datang Renewables.
Huaneng said it planned to invest 53.5% of the funds raised through the IPO to develop wind power projects. Of the remainder, 14.1% is to repay bank loans and 32.4% would be used to purchase wind power projects in China and abroad.
