The amount of orders generated by the public offering means that its retail tranche was about 19.5 times covered, although this is substantially less than the HK$280 billion placed in the aborted sale last year, market sources revealed in a report by the Hong Kong Standard.

Last year's offer, which was put on hold after a court challenge was brought by a Hong Kong Housing Authority tenant, was 130 times oversubscribed. Demand at the time was such that 50 percent of the offer was opened to retail investors rather than the original 10 percent.

In a bid to attract retail investors, the government has offered a 5% discount to the offering price, expected to be in the range of HK$9.70 to HK$10.30 per unit. Also, this time around, 30% of the offering will be available to individual investors.

The institutional tranche of the Link REIT offering saw orders of at least HK$167 billion and was at least twelve times oversubscribed. Units are being sold at a price of between HK$9.70 and HK$10.80 and offer a yield of between 5.5 percent and 5.88 percent in the year ending March 2006, based on a planned dividend of HK$0.198.

The Link REIT will make its debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on November 25.