Initial Offering Fees Reach Record Low in Hong Kong

Hong Kong bankers are charging the lowest fees on record to arrange initial public offerings as firms vie for deals in a market where IPOs are raising more than in the U.S. and U.K. combined.

Initial sales by 37 companies in Hong Kong have paid average fees of 2.2 percent in 2010, the lowest level since Bloomberg began tracking the data in 1999. While companies going public raised $18.7 billion, 64 percent more than American IPOs, banks earned about 43 percent less underwriting in the territory, the data show.