World’s most spectacular stock launches

The U.S. car concern General Motors’ share offering on Thursday could fetch up to 23.1 billion dollars, which would be a record sum for a stock placement.

Following is a list of the previous most spectacular share launches.

July 2010: Agriculture Bank of China debut on the stock market raises more than 22.1 billion dollars.

October 2006: Chinese financial giant Industrial and Commercial Bank (ICBC) share launch in Hong Kong and Shanghai fetches 21.9 billion dollars.

March 2008: Credit card concern Visa raises 19.7 billion dollars in a stock launch, the largest to date in U.S. history.

October 1998: The share launch of Japanese mobile telecoms concern NTT DoCoMo raises 18.4 billion dollars.

October 1999: Italian energy concern Enel stock launch generates 17.4 billion dollars.

November 1996: German telecoms concern Deutsche Telekom launches its T-Aktie, fetching about 13 billion dollars, the largest share placement ever in Germany.

July 2006: Russian oil giant Rosneft share offering raises 10.4 billion dollars.