China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co Ltd shares fell back slightly in afternoon trade on the Shanghai Stock Exchange after this morning's stellar debut.

The shares opened at a premium of 70 percent to their IPO price and sold as high as 51.97 yuan (US$7.09) before settling back to finish the day at 48.17 yuan -- 60.57 percent above the issue price of 30 yuan.

The company issued one billion A shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, making it the third insurer listed on the Chinese mainland after its larger rivals China Life and Ping An Insurance.

China has urged its largest financial firms to sell stock domestically to give mainland investors more choices.

The A shares account for 12.99 percent of China Pacific's expanded share capital and the money raised through the domestic listing will be used to replenish capital to help expand the business, its prospectus said.

Shenzhen-based Ping An, the nation's second-biggest insurer, raised US$5 billion in February in the world's biggest stock sale by an insurer. Larger China Life, based in Beijing, raised US$3.6 billion in December 2006.

Investors are seeking out IPOs as the rest of the market worries about rising interest rates and other government measures to cool growth in the economy. China Pacific may also entice investors because it's growing much faster than bigger rivals China Life and Ping An Insurance (Group).

Premiums at China Pacific, whose sales force is a third the size of Luxembourg's population, expanded 38.5 percent in the first 10 months of this year. That compares with the 6.2 percent growth for China Life and 15.4 percent for Ping An, according to the China Insurance Regulatory Commission.

China Pacific controls the nation's third-largest life insurer and second-biggest property and casualty insurance underwriter.