Longyuan Aims to Raise up to $1 Billion

By YVONNE LEE
HONG KONG -- China Longyuan Power Group Corp., the country's largest producer of electricity generated by wind power, plans to raise up to US$1 billion in a Hong Kong initial public offering before the end of this year, a person familiar with the situation said Monday.
The Beijing-based company plans to use the proceeds to boost its capacity to meet rising demand in China for cleaner energy, said the person, who declined to be named.
China is one of the world's largest investors in renewable energy, as part of its long-term plan to replace coal and oil with cleaner fuels.
Longyuan -- the renewable-energy arm of China Guodian, one of China's five biggest state-owned power generators by capacity -- said in June it accounted for 25% of China's wind-power producing capacity, with a power generation capacity of 3,000 megawatts.
It said earlier it planned to boost its capacity to 6,000 megawatts by 2010 and to 20,000 megawatts by 2020.
The person familiar with the situation said Longyuan's shares could begin trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange by early December.
Longyuan will join a number of other wind energy companies listed in the city, though none of them can match Longyuan's scale or the level of its state support.
Shares in China WindPower Group Ltd. have more than tripled since the start of this year. China WindPower, which made a backdoor listing in April 2007, said in July it aimed to boost its wind power capacity to about 600 megawatts by March 2010, and to 2,000 megawatts by March 2012.
Morgan Stanley and UBS AG are handling Longyuan's planned IPO, the person said.
Write to Yvonne Lee at yvonne.lee@wsj.com