By John Tilak
TORONTO, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Ontario electric utility Hydro
One Ltd's HYDRO.UL initial public offering was priced at
C$20.50 per share on Thursday, raising C$1.66 billion ($1.26
billion) and marking one of the biggest IPOs in Canadian
history.
The pricing suggested demand for a roughly 15 percent stake
in the province's largest electric utility was high.
Earlier this month, the government of Ontario outlined plans
to sell up to 89.25 million Hydro One shares in an IPO that was
seen pricing in the range of C$19 to C$21 a share, pegging the
overall value of the company between C$11.31 billion and C$12.5
billion. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N1291UQ
The shares, which will list on the Toronto Stock Exchange
under the ticker symbol "H", are expected to begin trading on
Nov. 5.
The company saw "extraordinarily strong demand," said Ed
Clark, chair of the Ontario premier's advisory council on
government assets. "The offering was significantly
oversubscribed."
"This has been textbook run. There's tremendous interest,"
he said in an interview. "The market is obviously enthusiastic
about it."
Clark, the former chief executive of Toronto-Dominion Bank
TD.TO , added that he was trying to build a strong bloc of
investors and had received interest from both retail and
institutional investors.
($1 = 1.3166 Canadian dollars)