AIA says IPO raised $20.5b

The Asian unit of troubled US insurer AIG has raised 20.5 billion US dollars in a Hong Kong share sale, making it the world's third-biggest initial public offering, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Some of the cash from AIA's huge IPO will go towards helping its parent pay off a 182 billion dollar bailout it received from the US taxpayer at the height of the global financial crisis.
AIG said Monday it had also raised 16.2 billion dollars by selling unit American Life Insurance Company (ALICO) to MetLife Inc.
The repayment of the huge sums handed out to troubled US companies is a priority for the embattled Obama administration, which is facing voter anger at mid-term elections Tuesday in the United States.
AIG was forced to look at floating AIA in Hong Kong after the collapse in June of a proposed 35.5-billion US dollar sale to British insurer Prudential.
AIA raised 17.8 billion dollars in the sale last month but said at the time the IPO could top 20 billion US dollars if certain options were exercised.
The IPO "raised 20.51 billion US dollars after the exercise of the greenshoe option, which brings the total number of shares offered to about 8.08 billion," an AIA spokeswoman told AFP on Tuesday.
Peter Lai, sales director at DBS Vickers in Hong Kong, said: "Many institutional investors had to buy shares (after the IPO) as the portion of shares set aside for them was quite small."
In July, Agricultural Bank of China claimed title to the world's biggest IPO with a monster 22.1 billion US dollar offering, beating the previous record set by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which raised 21.9 billion dollars in 2006.
AIA shares soared 17 percent on their debut Friday, closing at 23.05 Hong Kong dollars compared with a 19.68 dollar IPO price. The shares closed down 1.7 percent at 22.6 dollars on Tuesday.