|
Bank of China planning HK bourse listing
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-30 07:17
Bank of China will apply to list its shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
early next year, the China Securities Journal reported Thursday.
The
long-anticipated move follows the approval of a purchase of a 5 percent stake in
the bank by the Singaporean government investment company Temasek Holdings, the
report said.
A pedestrian walks past a branch of Bank of
China. [newsphoto/file] | "Preparations for listing application materials have been
completed and the bank will submit its listing application to the Hong Kong
Stock Exchange in early 2006," the report cited an unidentified source at the
bank as saying.
The Beijing-based Caijing Magazine reported this week
that the government-owned Central Huijin Investment, Bank of China's controlling
shareholder, had signed off on the bank's plan to sell a 5 percent stake to
Temasek for an undisclosed sum.
A Bank of China spokesman, Wang Zhaowen,
said he had no comment on the China Securities Journal report or its contents,
or about Temasek's bid. However, he confirmed that the bank was preparing its
application for a listing in Hong Kong.
Central Huijin earlier rejected a
bid by Temasekfor a 10 percent stake in the Chinese lender. The reasons for its
objections have not been disclosed, though Caijing reported that Finance
Ministry officials argued the price offered for the bank's shares was too
low.
China's central bank created Central Huijin in 2004 as a state
investment vehicle. Central Huijin has since injected more than $60 billion into
Bank of China, China Construction Bank and the Industrial & Commercial Bank
of China to help replenish their capital after the state-owned commercial banks
disposed of billions of dollars in bad loans.
China's banks are
restructuring and listing shares overseas, hoping to build up their
competitiveness as they brace for the full opening of the country's banking
industry to foreign competition late next year.
China Construction Bank
raised $8 billion in October in the world's biggest initial public offering this
year.
Bank of China's IPO is scheduled to be followed by a share listing
by the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, or ICBC, in 2007.
The
potential sizes of those initial public offerings have not been disclosed. But
Caijing's report said Bank of China's IPO was not likely to exceed that of BOC
Hong Kong (Holdings), the Beijing-based bank's Hong Kong unit. It raised $2.7
billion in a Hong Kong IPO in July 2002.
|
