Huishang Bank, the city commercial lender of China, has engaged the services of five underwriters to provide expertise for ita planned an initial public offer of its shares in the Hong Kong index. According to an IFR report last Friday, the said IPO is set to net between US$1 billion and US$1.5 billion.

The five global coordinators that would jointly manage the said IPO would be, according to IFR, which is a Thomson Reuters publication, UBS, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citic Securities International and BOC International. The publication cited anonymous sources familiar with the transaction.

Huishang is based out of Hefei, China and is planning to be listed in the Hong Kong bourse by the earliest at the end of 2013 or latest by early 2014.

The original plan was to list in the Shanghai bourse but since there is no indication of the reopening of the A-share IPO market, the company has opted to list in Hong Kong. In the original plan. Citic Securities would be the sponsor for the IPO in Shanghai.