HONK KONG (Bloomberg) — China Pacific Insurance (Group) Company, the nation's third-biggest insurer, may raise as much as $4 billion in what could be the largest Chinese insurance initial public offering, said two people familiar with the sale.

The company, 19.9 percent owned by the Carlyle Group, the world's second-biggest buyout firm, will begin soliciting bids today to help set a price range for the Shanghai sale, it said in a statement to the city's stock exchange.

The Shanghai-based insurer is offering of one billion new shares, equivalent to a 13 percent stake.

The IPO could value the parent of the nation's third-largest life insurer and second-biggest property and casualty insurer at as much as $31 billion, according to Bloomberg calculations.

China International Capital Corporation and UBS AG's China unit are arranging the IPO.

Liu Li, a spokeswoman at Pacific Insurance's Shanghai headquarters, couldn't immediately be reached.

Jessie Sun, a CICC spokeswoman in Beijing, and Chris Cockerill, a Hong Kong- based UBS spokesman, declined to comment.

China Life Insurance Company, the nation's largest life insurer, raised $3.6 billion in the biggest first-time public stock offering by a Chinese insurance company in December 2003.

Ping An Insurance (Group) Co., China's second-largest insurer, in February this year sold $5 billion worth of stock in Shanghai in the biggest insurance share sale globally since at least 1999, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The Shenzhen-based company went public in Hong Kong in June 2004.

Pacific Insurance will start taking orders from investors on December 13, according to the statement.

It tentatively plans to start trading on the Shanghai stock exchange December 25, said the people, asking not to be identified before an official statement.

It also aims to sell 900 million new shares in Hong Kong, according to yesterday's statement.

The company may sell the so-called H-shares in the first quarter of next year at a price no lower than that of the Shanghai stock, the people said.