June 20 (Bloomberg) -- Anta Sports Products Ltd., China's largest maker of athletic shoes, may raise HK$3.17 billion ($405 million) in a share sale that attracted Houston Rockets' owner Leslie Alexander, two people familiar with the deal said.

The company will sell 600 million new shares at HK$4.28 to HK$5.28 each in Hong Kong, said the people, declining to be identified before an official statement. The initial public offering values Anta, which tripled profit last year, at as much as $1.6 billion.

Alexander will invest HK$234.5 million in the IPO, the people said. China's Yao Ming, whose play in the National Basketball Association helped propel the game's popularity in China ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, is the Rockets' center.

``We like the market-leading position that Anta has created in the sporting goods field,'' said Andy Mantel, managing director at Pacific Sun Investment Management Ltd. in Hong Kong, adding that he's interested in buying the stock.

Chinese consumer-goods firms including Belle International Holdings and Intime Department Store (Group) Co. have gone public this year, taking advantage of soaring valuations to raise funds. The nation's sportswear market is growing about 23 percent annually, according to a June 8 report by Daiwa Securities Group Inc., which is helping arrange the IPO.

Pricier Than Nike

Last year, Anta had the largest share of the athletic shoes market in China, according to its Web site. The company, with 4,000 sales outlets operated by agents and third parties, has the second-biggest distribution network among China's sporting goods makers, after Li Ning Co., Daiwa said.

The high end of the price range values Anta at 19.7 times its estimated 2008 earnings, the people said. Nike Inc., the world's largest maker of athletic shoes, trades at 16.7 times next year's earnings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Anta had 3.2 percent of China's overall sportswear market in 2005, trailing Nike's 13.1 percent, Adidas with 12.3 percent and Li Ning on 9.6 percent, according to a share sale document distributed to fund managers today that cited ZOU Marketing, a Shanghai-based sports consultant firm.

The company, which began as a footwear workshop in Jinjiang in China's Fujian province in 1991, aims to become one of the world's 10 biggest sporting goods companies by 2011, according to its Web site.

Chinese Stock Sales

In 2003, Anta became the first Chinese company to sponsor an overseas basketball team when it agreed to back Lithuania's Proteus, according to the Web site. Besides its own brand, Anta also makes and sells sports products for other companies including Reebok, which signed Yao in October 2003 to market a line of athletic shoes and clothing under his name.

Nike sponsors Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers, the NBA's leading scorer this year. Tim Duncan of San Antonio Spurs wears Adidas shoes.

Chinese companies have raised $28 billion in share sales at home and in Hong Kong this year, Bloomberg data shows. PetroChina Co., the world's second-largest oil company by market value, today said it plans to sell $5.6 billion of stock in Shanghai.

Last month Belle International, the biggest retailer of women's shoes in China, sold HK$10 billion of stock in a Hong Kong IPO. It attracted more money than the Hong Kong portion of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.'s $22 billion IPO. Intime, a Chinese retail chain, and its shareholders raised HK$2.8 billion in March.

Profit Forecast

China's retail sales rose 15.2 percent from a year earlier in the first five months to 3.5 trillion yuan ($460 billion), powered by rising incomes and stock market gains. The nation's benchmark stock index has more than doubled this year.

Anta's sales surged 87 percent last year to 1.25 billion yuan and net income reached 147.4 million yuan. The company forecast profit will top 384.4 million yuan this year, according to the share sale document.

Morgan Stanley is lead underwriter for the IPO.

An Anta spokeswoman identified only by her surname Liu at Anta's Jinjiang headquarters couldn't immediately be reached for comment. Nick Footitt, a Morgan Stanley spokesman in Hong Kong, declined to comment.

The company began to take orders for 90 percent of the shares initially reserved for international institutions in the offering today. The shares, representing a 25 percent stake in the company, will be priced June 30 and begin trading July 10, according to the share sale document.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bei Hu in Hong Kong at bhu5@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 20, 2007 06:01 EDT