Investors bank on China

A faultless marketing strategy and the loyalty of the bank's corporate and retail customer base has propelled Bank of China's $2.47 billion (pre shoe) flotation to the kind of successful completion that few envisaged at the outset. Its achievement has also been all the more remarkable given the extreme volatility of global equity markets, the precarious state of the Chinese banking sector and sluggish economic backdrop in Hong Kong, where banks have been engaged in a fierce price war.