Metallurgical Corp of China Ltd, the country's biggest metallurgical engineering contractor, announced on Wednesday that 24.76 million of its nonpublic offering shares were purchased by China Chengtong Holdings Group Ltd, a State-owned asset-operating group.

The lockdown period for these shares will last for 12 months. MCC's stock rose by the 10 percent daily trading limit to close at 5.1 yuan (0.74 US dollar).

This is the first time that China Chengtong, which currently holding 350 billion yuan (50.65 billion US dollars) of equity funds for financing the restructuring of SOEs, put money into the country's A-share market.

"There is no doubt that SOE reform will become a hot investment theme in the stock market this year. Mixed ownership reform, asset-backed securitization and equity financing are expected to bring more cash into the stock markets sooner or later," said Du Chunbu, a professor of security trading at Nankai University in Tianjin.

"This would be helpful for a rebound in the stock market... as investors are optimistic about the ongoing SOE reform," said Du.

"However, regulators and investors must pay attention to prevent excessive speculation caused by companies or individuals with loads of hot money."

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission announced that China Chengtong and China Reform Holdings Co Ltd were two fund managers that would pilot SOE reforms set out by the central government last year.

The funds will be used to support SOEs to upgrade their industrial layout, optimize capital allocation, mergers and reorganization, as well as promote their overseas operations.

Nie Huihua, an economics professor at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said the central government's reforms aimed at exploring new State-owned asset management models focusing on the management of the capital rather than the companies.

Email: zengyunheng@nbd.com.cn