Banking News
- ICBC eyes overseas acquisition targets
Date: 26-Nov-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
INDUSTRIAL and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. (ICBC) has 'insufficient'' assets overseas and seeks more investments abroad, president Yang Kaisheng said Saturday, even as he denied the lender had plans to buy a stake in Standard Chartered Plc.
'ICBC will pursue a combined strategy of acquisitions and new projects in expanding overseas,'' Yang said during a finance conference in Beijing.
'Overseas diversification is an important way for Chinese banks to spread risks against cyclical economic downturns.''
Having raised US$22 billion in the world's largest share sale a year ago, ICBC, the world's biggest bank by market value, is expanding more aggressively than peers such as Bank of China Ltd. ICBC's 36.7 billion rand (US$5.4 billion) purchase of a 20 percent stake in South Africa's Standard Bank Group Ltd. is the biggest overseas investment by a Chinese company.
Yang joined China Construction Bank Corp. deputy president Luo Zhefu in denying a newspaper report that their banks planned to acquire a stake in Standard Chartered Plc. from Temasek Holdings Pte, the Singaporean Government's investment company.
'We have no plans to buy a stake in Standard Chartered,'' Luo said at the Beijing conference, while Yang said the report was just a rumor.
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