Shares of AIA, the Asian unit of U.S. life insurer AIG, opened 11.8 percent higher than its initial public offering price of 19.68 HK dollars (2.54 U.S. dollars) on its first trading day in Hong Kong Friday.

The insurer started trading at 22 HK dollars per share at the Hong Kong bourse.

"It's a truly historic day for AIA," said Mark Tucker, AIA Group executive chairman and CEO. "It's also a new beginning for AIA as a publicly listed and independent company."

With the successful listing, AIA's stock options and AIA derivative warrants were available at the same time. The Hong Kong stock exchange had announced the admission of AIA to the list of designated securities for short selling.

"Our aim is to ensure that we are the leading life insurance provider in the Asia-Pacific region," said Tucker, who also confirmed the company would continue to build businesses in all parts of the region.

AIA said on Thursday in a statement that it had offered 7.03 billion shares after the exercise of the offer size adjustment option, which brought 138.33 billion HK dollars to the U.S. company, also making it the largest IPO in HK, breaking the record set by ICBC, China's largest bank by market value, in 2006.

If the underwriters exercise the over-allotment option, the number of shares sold could increase by up to an additional 15 percent, to a maximum total offering of some 8.08 billion shares of AIA, which would represent 67.1 percent of the issued and outstanding shares of AIA.

If so, AIA could garner more than 159 billion HK dollars through the IPO, which would make it the world's second largest IPOs this year, just after the Agricultural Bank of China.

The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), one of the country's "big four" State-owned lenders and the last one to go public, garnered a total of 22.1 billion dollars from its dual-listing IPO in July this year.

After the exercise of the over-allotment option, ABC had issued 29.2 billion H-shares in Hong Kong and nearly 25.6 billion A- shares in Shanghai.

But in terms of the Hong Kong stock exchange, AIA has become the largest ever IPO in this financial hub's history.

"We are proud to be the largest IPO in Hong Kong's history, the third largest IPO globally and the world's largest IPO in the insurance sector," Mark Tucker said in the statement on Thursday.

"Following a highly enthusiastic response from investors around the world, our IPO has set new records," he said.

According to the statement, AIA's Hong Kong public offering was 9.62 times subscribed, without taking into account the exercise of the offer size adjustment option. In addition, its international placing was significantly over-subscribed.

Of the total shares offered by AIA, 10 percent were for public offering in Hong Kong, while the other 90 percent went to the international placing.

The benchmark Hang Seng index, however, fell 33.17 points, or 0. 14 percent, to open at 23,177.69 points in the day. It widened loss and dropped to as low as 22,880.68 points about half an hour after the opening.

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