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(The CCB purchases the Bank of America (Asia)) |
After the accomplishments of the shareholding reform and being listed in stock market, the ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China), the CCB (China Construction Bank) and the BC (Bank of China) are adopting new forwards thinking strategies and setting their sights overseas. Industry analysts argue that this is a new trend in the Chinese banking industry and is the first development of its kind in history. A foreign media source has reported that the BC is going to begin operations in the |
However, the BC has been always actively planned and practised overseas purchasing, and this intention was even more obvious since it was listed in both the Hong Kong and the mainland stock market in 2006. In the last December, the BC invested USD 965 million for 100% of the shares of the Singapore Airplane Lasing Company. Earlier this month, the ICBC tendered the Korea Exchange Bank, the fifth large bank of Korea. Yang Kaisheng, governor of the ICBC, skilfully skirts the issue with the comment to the public: “I haven’t heard of this new yet”.
As business rules, neither side involved in a deal can reveal any information before the negotiation table. Hence it is not difficult to understand the reason for the opaque answers from the banks. “Compared to opening new outlets overseas, purchasing and shareholding overseas banks are the relatively more convenient expansionary methods. In many developed countries, new outlets of immigrant banks often encounter obstacles in the fields of client resources and high-level supervision, so direct purchasing is the best solution for domestic Chinese banks”, argues Zhao Xijun, associated director of the FSI (Financial and Securities Institute) of RUC (Renmin University of China).
