Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG, Barclays Bank and seven other overseas institutional investors are among 134 finance industry firms on a list Chinese companies may pick from in seeking advice on pricing initial public offers.

The list, comprising 38 fund management companies, 10 qualified foreign investors, 52 brokerages, 13 trust companies and 21 finance companies, was published in the major securities newspapers today.

Starting this month, Chinese companies seeking to go public must solicit advice from at least 20 institutions under new rules on book-building before pricing their stock. The number jumps to at least 50 institutional investors for sales of 400 million shares or more, according to the rules published by the China Securities Regulatory Commission on Dec. 11.

The new rules are aimed at making the share-sale process more market-driven and at bringing China's stock markets more in line with international standards. The securities regulator previously imposed an unofficial price limit of 20 times per- share earnings on first-time share sales.

The commission said yesterday it approved Huadian Power International Corp., a Hong Kong-listed Chinese power producer, to be the first company to sell shares in China after almost a five-month suspension while new rules were under draft. The regulator will said it will vet applications for share sales from Baoshan Iron & Steel Co. and Guangdong Rieys Co. on Jan. 19.

China halted approval of share sales at the end of August pending rule changes that give institutional investors more say in setting offer prices.

Chinese stock indexes were the worst performers in 2004, according to Bloomberg's tracking of 60 major global indices. The Shanghai and Shenzhen composite indexes fell between 15 percent and 16 percent.

Companies on Shanghai yuan-denominated A-share index are trading at an average 26 times earnings, compared with a multiple of 14 for China companies on the H-share index in Hong Kong.

To contact the reporter on this story: Janet Ong in Shanghai at jong3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 14, 2005 21:03 EST