CFC shares rose 44% on day one of trade on Shanghai Stock Exchange

CFC’s listing was biggest, most anticipated in Chinese entertainment

Upon Shenzhen listing Omnijoi shares also rose daily maximum, 44%

A China Film Cinema in Hangzhou (Wikimedia Commons)

China Film Co.’s initial public offering (IPO) on Tuesday marked the largest share float in the history of the Chinese entertainment industry, and certainly the most anticipated, with talk of the listing dating back to 2010.

On the first day of trading, CFC shares climbed 44 percent on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. With an offering price of RMB 8.92 ($1.34) per share, the stock opened at RMB 10.7 and quickly reached the exchange-imposed daily limit to close at RMB 12.84, valuing the company at RMB 24 billion (U.S.$3.6 billion).

The stock later rose a further 10 percent to RMB 14.12 ($2.12) by mid-morning on Wednesday.

China Film Co. was established in 2010 as the distribution unit of state-owned China Film Group Corporation. In late July the company said it hoped to raise RMB 4.2 billion in an IPO in order to fund movie production and cinema investments.

All films imported into China are handled either by China Film or fellow state-backed distributor Huaxia. China Film has a 58 percent share of the country’s overall movie distribution market. The float marked the company’s fourth time attempting to go public, having aborted earlier efforts in 2010, 2012, and 2014.

Elsewhere in China IPOs, Omnijoi Media (幸福蓝海影视文化集团), a Nanjing-based company film and television production and distribution company that also operates cineplexes, floated on Monday on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Omnijoi shares climbed 44 percent in their first day of trading, immediately making an on-paper millionaire out of its most prominent shareholder, actor and producer Wu Xiubo (吴秀波), who holds around 466 million shares in the company.

Wu joins Zhao Wei, Fan Bingbing, and Huang Xiaoming in the ranks of movie stars who are making, and at times losing, fortunes in the stock markets of Greater China.

In 2014, Omnijoi Media and China Film Company joined with New York-based Boneyard Entertainment to present China/Hong Kong award-winning co-production film noir Black Coal, Thin Ice.

China’s market for initial public offerings is the hottest it’s ever been, Bloomberg reported last week, with 62 new Chinese stocks up an average of 420 percent after their first month of trading.