Shareholders of China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), Asia's largest refiner, have approved the company's share restructuring plan, media reports said Tuesday.

 

The plan, adopted at a shareholders meeting Monday, proposed to give 2.8 free shares for every 10 Shanghai-listed yuan-denominated shares held, to compensate minority shareholders for the selling of non-tradable equity, the China Securities Journal said.

 

Of Sinopec's 86.7 billion shares, only 2.8 billion tradable shares were listed on the Shanghai bourse. The restructuring would increase tradable shares to 3.58 billion shares, the Beijing News said.

 

Over 99 percent of the shareholders voted in favor of the restructuring plan, the reports said.

 

Sinopec is the last blue chip in the market to join the shareholding reform, which aims to transform non-tradable shares held by the state and institutional investors into tradable shares.

 

The dominance of non-tradable shares in most of China's listed firms is generally regarded as a major flaw of the country's stock market. As non-tradable shares are generally priced much lower than their market value, restructuring plans usually involve the handout of free shares to owners of tradable shares.

 

Launched in 2005, the shareholding reform has swept about 1,100 firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, accounting for over 90 percent of their total capitalization.

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 27, 2006)