China Coal Energy Ltd., the country's second largest coal manufacturer, froze 2.74 trillion yuan (380.58 billion U.S. dollars) of its A share initial public offering (IPO) online subscription, sources with the company told Xinhua on Tuesday.

A total of 386.1 billion yuan in offline subscriptions were frozen, the company said.

The IPO price was set at 16.83 yuan at the top of the price range of 16 yuan to 16.83 yuan per share after a road show that ran from Jan. 21 to Jan. 23 in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

The price translated into a price-to-earnings ratio of 43.71 times.

The company said earlier this month that 75 percent of the shares would be offered online to individual and institutional investors on Jan. 25, making it the country's highest ever online subscription offering.

The remainder was to be offered as subscriptions from institutional investors from Jan. 24 to Jan. 25.

According to the prospectus released on Jan. 7, the company planned to issue up to 1.525 billion A shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. This represented 11.51 percent of the company's capitalization after the IPO.

The company is likely to net up to 25.67 billion yuan from the Shanghai sale. The proceeds would be used for the construction of major coal projects in northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and northeastern Heilongjiang Province, and to supplement the company's operating capital.

China Coal Energy was exclusively initiated by the China National Coal Group Corp. in August 2006 and was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in December 2006. Its assets were valued at 55.29 billion yuan with net assets of 31.88 billion yuan by the end of June. Operating turnover reached 16.93 billion yuan and net profits hit 2.44 billion yuan in the first half of 2007.

(Xinhua News Agency January 30, 2008)