Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. (ICBC), China's biggest bank in terms of assets, has selected five underwriters for its planned initial public offering, the bank announced on March 10.

 

The five are Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse Group, Industrial and Commercial East Asia Finance Holdings Ltd, Goldman Sachs, and a Morgan Stanley-China International Capital Corporation Ltd Capital joint venture.

 

ICBC did not give details of where it would list or the projected size of the IPO, but industry watchers reckon that it will follow in China Construction Bank's footsteps (CCB). Last year, CCB listed in Hong Kong with an IPO valued at US$9.2 billion.

 

Earlier media reports estimated US$10 billion for ICBC's IPO.

 

As for when, ICBC would only say that it is working towards going public at an "appropriate time" this year.

 

All five chosen entities have strong reputations and comprehensive strengths, as well as extensive experiences in financing China's state-owned enterprises. They were also selected because of their long-term friendly ties with ICBC.

 

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. will act as financial advisor to ICBC.

 

Foreign investors are keen to get a piece of the lucrative Chinese financial market pie, which is due to be fully opened by the end of this year in accordance with World Trade Organization commitments. 

 

China's banks want to establish partnerships with their more sophisticated foreign rivals as a shortcut to improving business. Chinese banks accumulated vast amounts of bad debts on the back of reckless lending to state enterprises over the years.

 

ICBC restructured into a joint stock company in the autumn of 2005. In January this year, it announced a US$3.78 billion investment deal with Goldman Sachs Group Inc., American Express Co, and Germany's Allianz AG.

 

The bank now boasts 18,000 business outlets on the mainland, serving more than four million enterprises and over 100 million individual clients.

 

Its capital adequacy ratio (CAR) - the measure of its available capital in proportion to its outstanding loans - rose to 10.26 percent by the end of 2005, already above the international requirement of eight percent. The bank said it is targeting a rise in the index to more than 10.4 percent by the end of the year.

 

ICBC's non-performing loan ratio was 4.43 percent in 2005 as compared with the one to two percent level reported by international banks.

 

The bank aims for business profits of more than 100 billion yuan (US$12.5 billion) for 2006, a rise from 90.2 billion yuan last year. It said it will boost e-banking and its fee business.

 

Of the other state banks, Bank of China also has plans of listing this year.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2006)