(Yicai Global) Dec. 14 -- China Mobile, the world’s biggest telecoms carrier, is poised for a share sale in Shanghai that could be the biggest in the Chinese mainland in 10 years.

China Mobile plans to issue up to 845.7 million A-shares, which trade in the mainland, or no more than 3.97 percent of the total outstanding, the Beijing-based firm said in a prospectus posted on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s website today.

A so-called green shoe option would hike that to 973 million shares, or about 4.53 percent of the total, raising about CNY57.5 billion (USD9 billion). China Mobile had planned to issue 965 million shares, according to a preliminary prospectus filed on Aug. 18, with the company then expected to bank CNY56 billion, the most for a mainland share issue in a decade and the fifth-most ever.

The latest prospectus did not say how much China Mobile hopes to raise. Between Dec. 16 and 17, the carrier will conduct preliminary enquiries to confirm the issue price, and it will open subscriptions on Dec. 22, the company said.

China Mobile said the proceeds of the Shanghai secondary listing, which was approved on Nov. 4, will be used for fifth-generation boutique network projects, new infrastructure for cloud resources, gigabit smart home projects, research and development of new generation information technology and digital intelligent ecology, and to build high-quality fifth-generation networks.

China Mobile posted a 6.9 percent increase in net profit to CNY87.2 billion in the first three quarters of this year from a year earlier, with revenue up 12.9 percent to CNY648.6 billion (USD101.9 billion), per its latest financial results.

It estimated a net profit of between CNY114.3 billion and CNY116.5 billion in fiscal 2021, up 6 percent to 8 percent, with revenue likely to increase about 10 percent to 11 percent to between CNY844.9 billion and CNY852.6 billion.

China Mobile’s Hong Kong-listed shares [HKG: 0941] fell 0.5 percent today to HKD46.10 (USD5.91) each, the lowest closing price since Jan. 26.

Editor: Futura Costaglione