SHANGHAI: China Mobile shares soared more than nine percent on Wednesday in their debut on the Shanghai stock exchange after the telecoms giant was delisted in New York amid tensions between Beijing and Washington.
The stock jumped as much as 9.4 percent before quickly paring those gains and was more than three percent higher an hour into trading.
The share offer is expected to raise $8.8 billion after the company exercises an over-allotment option, Bloomberg News said, making it the largest on China's domestic stock markets in more than a decade.
China's largest wireless carrier by revenue was removed from the New York Stock Exchange last year along with fellow state-owned telecoms firms China Telecom and China Unicom.
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That followed an executive order by former president Donald Trump banning Americans from investing in a range of companies deemed to be supplying or supporting China's military and security apparatus.
The group has said that funds raised will go towards building 5G infrastructure, as well as "smart home" projects and other initiatives.
Some of China's biggest tech and telecom firms listed on US stock markets in recent decades as they sought access to fresh funding and more developed capital markets. But the tide turned as tensions between Beijing and Washington have soared in recent years.
China's government also has been encouraging companies to list on domestic exchanges as part of a push to keep big tech players closer to home and help develop the country's capital markets.
China Telecom, the country's biggest fixed-line operator, debuted in Shanghai last August after raising $7.3 billion in its IPO.
China Unicom has listed shares of a subsidiary in Shanghai since 2002.
In October, US officials told China Mobile to discontinue its services in the country, ending nearly two decades of operations, in a move that Beijing called "malicious suppression" of Chinese companies.
The US Federal Communications Commission said the firm's "ownership and control by the Chinese government raise significant national security and law enforcement risks".
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