By Prudence Ho 

HONG KONG--A rush of multibillion-dollar initial public offerings in the last month has pushed this city into second place in the global IPO rankings, behind New York, home to the record Alibaba listing in September.

So far this year, Hong Kong has raised $27.1 billion from listings, including a $3.7 billion IPO by Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties Co, which was priced on Tuesday. Hong Kong, which also ranked second last year, trailed the New York Stock Exchange's $73.4 billion in IPOs, but was ahead of the Nasdaq Stock Market, where companies raised $23.9 billion. Listings on the London Stock Exchange totaled $22.6 billion.

Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd.'s busy year came as share sales in the Asia-Pacific region, from IPOs to block trades, reached four-year highs, even as the market lost out on the $25 billion IPO of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Issuance on the equity capital markets, including convertible bonds, which can be exchanged into equity, has reached about $265 billion so far this year, up 11% from the total for all of last year. That is the highest level since it reached a full-year total of $398 billion in 2010, according to Dealogic, a data-tracking company.

While Australia had the biggest IPO on a market in the region--a $4.9 billion listing by Australian health insurer Medibank Private Ltd. last month--deals by Chinese companies in Hong Kong just kept coming in the last few months of 2014. Apart from the IPO by Dalian Wanda, a real-estate business controlled by Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin, Hong Kong saw listings by CGN Power Co., China's largest nuclear-power firm, which raised $3.2 billion from its IPO, as well as a $1.4 billion listing by BAIC Motor Corp., a car maker.

"Next year, we can expect to see a number of big deals in Hong Kong from Chinese financial institutions such as brokerages, insurers and asset management firms," said Jonathan Penkin, co-head of the financing group for the Asian-Pacific region, excluding Japan, at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

An IPO being conducted by Shengjing Bank Co., in northeast China, is the first such Hong Kong deal by a Chinese bank since March, when Harbin Bank Co. raised $1.1 billion. Shengjing is looking to raise up to $1.4 billion and will price its deal later this week.

Other Chinese banks that could list next year are Bank of Beijing Co., and Bank of Shanghai, which is partly owned by HSBC Holdings PLC. Brokerages Huatai Securities Co. and GF Securities Co. are also each likely to launch $1 billion IPOs next year. Taikang Life Insurance Co. may raise up to $2 billion and China Huarong Asset Management Co., a company set up to handle banks' bad debts, could raise around $3 billion.

Worries about China's economic slowdown will limit interest among investors, but companies that have an edge will still find fans, bankers say.

"Investors like stories that benefit from China's policy directions such as the healthcare and new energy sectors," said Mille Cheng, co-head of equity capital markets in Asia Pacific at Morgan Stanley. "Also, e-commerce or internet companies with new business models generating high growth will continue to capture investors' attention."

CGN Power, the first nuclear-power firm to list globally since 1996, is an example of a niche play that has caught investors' attention. Its shares are up 25% since it listed on Dec. 10.

IPOs weren't the only booming business for bankers this year. Sales in areas from block trades to convertible-bond issuance chalked up gains, especially as China's stock market became one of the world's best performers this year. The Shanghai Composite Index is up almost 43% this year, and the biggest block trade in the Asian-Pacific region was a sale of $7.4 billion of shares by LCD panel maker BOE Technology Group in Shenzhen in April.

The largest convertible bond was a $1.6 billion issue by Zhejiang Zheneng Electric Power Co., in Shanghai in October. Still, China's biggest IPO--a $657 million listing by Shaanxi Coal Industry Co.--was relatively small.

Hong Kong also saw a lot of big share sales, including a $6.9 billion share placement by Citic Pacific, a Chinese state-owned company, to finance an acquisition of its parent's assets. Citic Pacific has renamed itself Citic Ltd. since the deal was completed.

In a second major Hong Kong deal, Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. of China raised $4.7 billion via a private placement, where shares are sold to a limited number of buyers. The block trade by Citic Pacific was the region's second-biggest placement, ranking behind BOE Technology's deal, and followed by Ping An's transaction.

Australia also saw a flood of share sales. Equity-capital market sales volume, counting both share sales and IPOs, rose 35% to $36.4 billion this year, according to Dealogic, benefiting from a rally that took the stock market to a six-year high. The gains began to unravel in September--Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index is down almost 9% since then, but IPOs have flourished this year. Medibank is up more than 6% since listing in November.

Healthscope Ltd., an operator of hospitals, raised $2.1 billion in a July IPO. The stock is 23% above the listing price.

IPO activity has been slower in India, even though the BSE Sensex index has risen 29% this year, buoyed by the election, in May, of a government seen as pro-business. Bankers say that next year, India could see some deals as the government sells stakes in companies such as Coal India Ltd. Private-equity firms are also looking to exit from investments, potentially via IPOs.

Shefali Anand contributed to this article.

Write to Prudence Ho at prudence.ho@wsj.com

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