China Pacific hired Switzerland's UBS to handle the deal in April, and its deal would follow a spate of Hong Kong listings by Chinese financial services firms.

China Pacific, which sold 2 billion yuan (HK$1.97 billion) in subordinated bonds in July, will follow listings in recent years by top life insurer China Life Insurance (2628), Ping An Life Insurance (2318) and PICC Property & Casualty (2328).

Sources warned, however, that China Pacific still needed final regulatory approval for a planned investment by Insurance Australia Group, which might delay the listing.

China International Capital Corp, the mainland's top investment bank, was also pitching for a role on the underwriter team, sources said.

Insurance premiums are booming in China as the government dismantles its cradle-to-grave welfare system, and domestic insurers have recently won approval to invest in higher-yielding securities than bank deposits and government bonds.

China Pacific was an investor in Bank of China (3988) ahead of the lender's June 1 market debut and it has invested 2 billion yuan in ICBC's IPO, which market sources said was already trading up 10 percent in the gray market prior to its debut tomorrow.

Wang Guoliang, chairman of China Pacific, resigned in July as part of what analysts said was a Beijing-led shake- up of top executives at big state-run financial firms.

Shanghai's city government assigned Wang to a board supervisor job with a non-financial state-owned firm, and he was replaced by Gao Guofu, former head of a local real estate and construction company controlled by the city of Shanghai.

China Pacific sold a 25 percent stake in its life insurance arm to US buyout firm Carlyle Group and Prudential Financial, a US insurer, for US$400 million last year.

It has also agreed to sell nearly 25 percent of its non-life insurance arm to Insurance Australia for about US$280 million, the deal that is still awaiting regulatory approval, sources said. REUTERS