BEIJING, July 20 -- The shares of the first two city banks to be listed, Bank of Nanjing and Bank of Ningbo, rose sharply from their IPO prices on their debut Sunday on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges.

    Bank of Nanjing, around 13 percent owned by BNP Paribas of France, soared 72.18 percent to close at 18.94 yuan from an initial public offering (IPO) price of 11 yuan on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

    Bank of Ningbo, partly owned by Singapore's Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp, surged 140.54 percent to close at 22.13 yuan from an IPO price of 9.2 yuan on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

    "The performance of Bank of Ningbo is beyond our expectations. Bank of Nanjing's performance is relatively reasonable and within our expectations," said Wu Yonggang, analyst with Guotai Jun'an Securities.

    "Compared with Bank of Nanjing, Bank of Ningbo has a smaller market capitalization and a more competitive profit-earning capability. Thus investors have higher expectations about the future profitability of Bank of Ningbo," said Wu.

    As many as 197.36 million of Bank of Ningbo's shares changed hands yesterday to yield a total turnover of 4.12 billion yuan.

    "Trading of the bank's shares will help establish a long-term capital supplementary mechanism and allow us to manage the bank at a higher level and make it more competitive," said Lu Huayu, chairman of Bank of Ningbo.

    Francis Lun, general manager with Fulbright Securities, said he was "not surprised at all" at the bank's debut performance. "Local investors' enthusiasm toward new shares remains strong in the city and as the first city commercial bank of its kind to be listed in Shenzhen, many believe that buying into it will be very profitable."

    Bank of Nanjing has set its sights on cross-regional expansion. "We plan to open one branch in Shanghai and another one in Wuxi this year," said Lin Fu, chairman of the bank at the IPO ceremony on the exchange floor yesterday.

    Bank of Ningbo posted a net profit of 6.3 billion yuan in 2006, up 33.93 percent from the year before, while Bank of Nanjing's earnings rose 61.95 percent to 5.9 billion yuan in the same period.

    (Source: China Daily)