Li Ka-Shing’s CKI Plunges on Share-Sale Plan

Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Ltd. (1038), controlled by billionaire Li Ka-shing, fell the most in more than two years in Hong Kong trading after announcing a HK$3.4 billion ($436 million) share-sale plan.

The roads and utility company known as CKI dropped as much as 7 percent, the most since October 2008, and traded down 5.6 percent at HK$41 as of 10:08 a.m.

The slide followed CKI’s announcement to the Hong Kong stock exchange today that it plans to sell 84.5 million shares at HK$40.41 each for general funding. The placing price is a discount of 7 percent to yesterday’s closing price of HK$43.45.

CKI will submit a 2.4 billion pound ($3.9 billion) takeover proposal for the U.K.’s Northumbrian Water Group Plc (NWG), it said July 11. The Hong Kong-based company, which has invested in electricity, gas, water and road assets in New Zealand, China, Australia, the U.K. and Canada, led a group that agreed in October to buy Electricite de France SA’s U.K. power networks for 5.8 billion pounds.

CKI’s controlling shareholder, Li’s Hutchison Infrastructure Holdings Ltd., will sell 84.5 million existing shares to not less than six independent investors and then subscribe the same amount of new shares. Its holding in CKI will be reduced to 81.527 percent after the completion of the fund- raising, from 84.583 percent, the company said in the statement.

To contact the reporters on this story: Billy Chan in Hong Kong at bchan101@bloomberg.net; Jasmine Wang in Hong Kong at jwang513@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Vipin Nair at vnair12@bloomberg.net