By Hao Zhou (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-10-10 14:12

Subscriptions for Harvest Fund Management Co Ltd's stock-oriented fund overseas China totaled 70 billion yuan (US$9.3 billion) when it went public yesterday, according to today's Shanghai Securities News.

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Harvest's overseas China is the third licensed stock-oriented qualified domestic institutional investor (QDII) fund, and also the first public offering fund focusing on the Chinese Hong Kong stock market. The offering, expected to raise US$4 billion, was previously scheduled to end October 19.

However, having experience an explosive subscription demand, the company decided to call an end to the initial offerings ahead of schedule, on October 9, according to Harvest's official announcement.

Meanwhile, subscribers will be allocated approximately 42 percent of their subscription at the ending date, in compliance with the ratio between offering quota and subscription volume, the Shanghai Securities News predicted.

The proportion of confirmed subscriptions will be publicized when the fund contract enters into force. The unconfirmed subscription money will be returned to investors.

On September 12, subscriptions for the pilot stock-oriented QDII fund managed by Southern Fund accounted 4.9 billion yuan. Immediately following, Huaxia's QDII fund brought the record to 6.3 billion yuan on September 27. This time, Harvest's 70 billion yuan proved that the quota of 30 billion yuan had significantly underestimated the investors’ enthusiasm over QDII funds.

The newspaper attributed the sizzling QDII funds to the absence of new A-Share funds in nearly one month, as well as to investor expectations of high returns from overseas stock markets and their trust in fund companies managing QDII funds.