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Hollard hopes to raise R9.36bn by listing Greenstone

Sydney - South African-owned insurer Hollard Group plans to raise nearly A$1bn (R9.36bn) by listing its Australian unit Greenstone, a regulatory filing showed on Monday, in what is set to be Australia's biggest initial public offering for the year to date.

The listing will be closely watched by capital markets participants anxious to gauge the strength of an IPO market that has, after a record year in 2014, cooled substantially due to concerns about sluggish economies around the world.

About 58% of Greenstone, or 398 million shares, will be sold for between A$2.00 and A$2.50 per share, a prospectus filed with Australian authorities showed.

At the top end of the range, Greenstone, which sells life and pet insurance, would have a market value of A$1.7bn (R15.92bn).

The listing is slated for June 16.

The deal is likely to top the A$834m (R8.8bn) raised by accounting software firm MYOB, which closed below its issue price on Monday, underscoring weakness in the IPO market.

Total money raised by Australian IPOs tumbled to $327m (R3bn) in the first quarter of 2015 from $7.5bn (R70bn) in the fourth quarter of last year. The average IPO size fell to $30m (R280.9m) from $270m (R2.53bn) over the same period, according to Thomson Reuters data.

"We are extremely excited about the IPO," Nic Kohler, CEO of the Hollard Group in South Africa, said in a statement, adding that he had no plans to list the South African business.

Goldman Sachs, Macquarie Capital, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan are working on the IPO and a final issue price will be determined June 11-12, the source said.

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