IFM Investments, which holds the China franchise for the Century 21 brand, was forced to reduce its offering price range by 20% at the low end last week to get its US initial public offering out the door. The existing shareholders who had planned to sell approximately 4.16 million American depositary shares ADS also withdrew their shares from the offering, cutting the size of the deal from 16.65 million ADS to 12.49 million.
The deal was in the market at a challenging time with significant selloffs in secondary markets globally, muted appetite for IPOs and speculation that China will continue to tighten property market regulations to calm speculative transactions and that it is also...