Bank of China shares surged 15 percent on Thursday as they made their debut in Hong Kong and were snapped up by investors eager to tap into the sizzling Chinese economy.
　　
　　The bank, China‘s No. 2 lender, raised $9.7 billion from its initial public offering — the world‘s biggest in six years.
　　
　　Shares were valued at 2.95 Hong Kong dollars each (38 U.S. cents), and they closed at HK$3.40 (43 U.S. cents), defying jitters that dragged down the market‘s benchmark Hang Seng Index by 1.3 percent.
　　
　　About HK$20.06 billion ($2.58 billion) worth of shares changed hands.
　　
　　Louis Wong, director of Phillip Securities (HK) Ltd., said it was a good day for the stock considering the choppy trading that has hit markets recently throughout the region.
　　
　　"Investors still remain upbeat about the future of the Bank of China, so there‘s solid support on the buy-side today," Wong said.
　　
　　Demand for the stock has been strong among institutional investors, who haven‘t been scared away by the bank‘s history of corruption and bad debt.
　　
　　The lender is urging people to focus on its future — the booming business it plans to do with China‘s increasingly affluent consumers, who are hungry for credit cards, mortgages and auto loans.
　　
　　"Personal banking will be one of our chief growth drivers in the year ahead," said the bank‘s president, Li Lihui, at a recent news conference.
　　
　　Goldman Sachs Group and UBS AG were underwriters of the deal.
　　
　　The Bank of China has assets of 4.7 trillion yuan ($586 billion), making it the country‘s second-biggest lender. The bank, founded in 1912, is the nation‘s most international lender, with 560 offices in 25 countries.
　　
　　But the bank has had serious problems with bad lending. It‘s ratio of nonperforming loans to total lending was reported at a whopping 33 percent in 2003. After a government bailout, the bank said the number fell to 4.4 percent.
　　
　　However, much of its lending has been to companies, and an economic slowdown could cause the bad loans to balloon again.
　　
　　Corruption has been another big worry. One of the bank‘s former chairmen, Wang Xuebing, is serving a 12-year prison term for taking bribes. A former president of the bank‘s Hong Kong branch, Liu Jinbao, was given a suspended death sentence last August for embezzlement. Such sentences are usually commuted to life in prison.
　　
　　Two former branch managers and their family members are facing trial in Las Vegas, Nevada, for alleged embezzlement and money laundering.
　　
　　Steven Y.L. Cheung, a professor of finance at City University of Hong Kong, said the past problems aren‘t spooking investors because they think the stock gives them a chance to buy into China‘s hot economic growth.
　　
　　Cheung added that investors think that since the bank is among the first to list overseas, it must have sorted out its accounting books and is "brave enough to face the international investment community." The bank also has the crucial support of China‘s central government, which has launched a campaign to clean up the financial system, he said.
　　
　　"Bank of China is too big to fail," the professor said.
　　
　　The total amount to be raised in the IPO could reach $11.4 billion if demand remains high and the underwriters sell an additional 15 percent of shares.
　　
　　AT&T Wireless Services Inc. had a $10.6 billion IPO in April 2000.
　　
　　Another factor inspiring investors is the success other Chinese banks have had with IPOs in the past year in Hong Kong. The share price for China Construction Bank, the nation‘s No. 4 lender, has shot up nearly 50 percent since its IPO in late October.
　　
　　The parade of big Chinese bank IPO is expected to continue when Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country‘s No. 1 lender, hits Hong Kong‘s market later this year.