Foreign Stock Offerings On Pace For Record Year

France Telecom is not the only foreign company going public this year with the help of investors in the United States.

Attracted by the bull market and the deep pockets of Americans, 73 foreign companies raised a total of $7.5 billion in initial public offerings here through Aug. 31.

If the pace continues, the 1997 numbers could surpass the record of $10.4 billion raised last year in 98 such offerings, said John Fitzgibbon, editor of IPO Aftermarket, a newsletter.

Over all, in fact, the new stocks of 1997 have had a strong international flavor. Through August, foreign IPOs represented about 20 percent of all offerings in number of issues and 33 percent in dollar volume. For 1996, the respective figures were 11 percent and 21 percent; for 1995, 9 percent and 17 percent.

So far this year, the busy sectors for foreign new issues have included telecommunications, banking and airlines. Among the countries with large numbers of deals are Mexico, China and Israel.

Privatization has brought many deals to market, especially telecommunications companies, said Linda Killian, a portfolio manager at Renaissance Capital, a research firm in Greenwich, Conn., which specializes in IPOs.

Besides France Telecom, telephone-company offerings including Bell Canada, a company controlled by BCE Inc., that went public on Oct. 6, and China Telecom (Hong Kong), which starts trading in the United States on Wednesday.

But while a few foreign IPOs come from such big companies, most, just as with domestic IPOs, are offered by the small concerns that can be chancy investments.

“You definitely have the small company risks” with foreign IPOs, Killian said.