By In what will be London's biggest stock market listing so far this year, Esure is set on Friday to join housebuilder Crest Nicholson (>> Crest Nicholson Holdings PLC) and estate agent Countrywide (>> Countrywide plc) in completing initial public offerings (IPOs) in London.
The flotations reflect a pick up in stock markets which has encouraged companies to test investor appetite for new stock.
Esure had on Wednesday narrowed the price range for the share sale to between 275 pence and 310p per share, the people said, the upper end of its initial 240p to 310p range.
Potential investors are now being guided towards a price of around 290p, after being told those with orders below that level would miss out on the sale, the people said.
Order books for the offering, in which as much as half of the company will be sold, will close at 12:00 p.m. British time, five hours ahead of schedule due to strong demand, one of the people said.
The company had received enough orders for the minimum number of shares to be sold in the flotation just one day in to a two week bookbuilding process.
When it kicked off the sale earlier this month, esure said it expected to be valued at around 1.1 billion pounds if the offer priced at the mid-point of its range.
That values founder and chairman Peter Wood's stake at more than half a billion pounds and means he could bank around 170 million pounds from selling a third of his holding.
(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Tommy Wilkes and David Holmes)
By Kylie MacLellan
