Jul. 13, 2007  �?Share prices of the leading mainland producer of zinc, nickel and copper Western Mining<601168> skyrocketed in their Shanghai debut yesterday after the firm pulled US$816 million in its IPO.

The economic boom in China has certainly played a key role in this frenzied corporate rush from domestic investors. With the general sentiments of the mounting value of raw materials, new shares were snapped quickly as profit performance marked a record high. The mining company will proceed with aggressive expansion strategy amid buoyant stance in the mining sector, our sources revealed. Chairman Mao Xiaobing added that going public is in line with the company's ambitions of expansion overseas as well as in China.

Shares were up 144% from the IPO offering of RMB 13.48, a far cry from analysts' forecasted rally of 71% to 85% on its trading debut. The A shares closed at RM 32.84 on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, or 51 times last year's earnings, valued the mining company at approximately RMB 78 billion. In addition, price-to-earning ratio was registered at 44 times, based on 2006's profit, for practically 900 stocks listed in Shanghai.

Industry professionals said that the mining firm was likely to outperform the industry in profit growth, as shares price are supported by strong global prices of metals which have soared in the recent months from China-based industrial users. Lead prices on the London Metal Exchange recorded an all-time high on Wednesday. The nation's seventh-largest copper miner will use stock proceed to help expand its mining and smelting facilities.

Goldman Sachs, a Wall Street giant who holds 8.07% stake in Western Mining, raised RMB 6.2 billion last week from its sale of 460 million mainland shares, or 19.3 % of its expanded share capital. The mainland share IPO was underwritten by Swiss investment bank UBS Securities.