China's biggest lender, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), saw its operating profit jump 27 percent in the first half of 2006.

 

Loans issued by the bank rose by 168.3 billion yuan (US$21 billion) in the same period to 1.045 trillion yuan (US$130.6 billion), the ICBC said in a statement.

 

The bank, which is planning a simultaneous dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, earned 35 billion yuan (US$4.4 billion) from the gap between deposit and lending rates in the first half of this year.

 

Its combined revenue from intermediary services, or fee-based services, and capital transaction deals is for the first time now bigger than the fees garnered from the gap between deposit and lending rates in the same period, the bank said in the statement.

 

"It shows that its revenue sources are now becoming diversified, shifting from its previous overwhelming reliance on the spread between deposit and lending rates as its major income," said Zhang Xi, a banking analyst at China Galaxy Securities.

 

The bank posted a net profit of 33.7 billion yuan (US$4.2 billion) last year, up 12 percent year-on-year, according to its 2005 annual report released earlier this month.

 

The Beijing-based bank is aiming to raise up to US$21 billion in a dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

 

The offering, expected to take place in October, would be the world's biggest initial public offering (IPO), surpassing Japan's NTT Mobile Communications' IPO, which raised US$18.4 billion in 1998.

 

Domestic media reported that the country's top lender would have applied to the Hong Kong stock exchange for the listing yesterday.

 

But a stock exchange spokesman declined to confirm the report.

 

The ICBC has picked Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, ICEA and a consortium led by China International Capital Corp (CICC) to underwrite its Hong Kong share sales.

 

Guotai Junan Securities, CICC, CITIC Securities and Shenyin & Wanguo Securities will underwrite its Shanghai listing.

 

The ICBC issued a total of 125 billion yuan (US$15.6 billion) of individual loans in the first half of this year and its outstanding individual loans amounted to 532.9 billion yuan (US$66.6 billion), accounting for 16 percent of its total outstanding loans, the statement said.

 

The lender's capital adequacy ratio hit 9.89 percent and its non-performing loans dropped to 4.7 percent of its total loans, according to its 2005 annual report.

 

The ICBC's assets reached 6.45 trillion yuan (US$806 billion) by the end of last year, up 28 percent from the previous year, according to its 2005 annual report.

 

Another big State-owned bank, the Agricultural Bank of China, also released its operation results for the first half of this year.

 

Its operating profit soared by 17.9 percent to 25.7 billion yuan (US$3.2 billion) in the first half of this year, the bank said in a statement yesterday.

 

Revenue from fee-based services jumped 47.7 percent to 5.7 billion yuan (US$713 million) in the same period.

 

Outstanding non-performing loans dropped by 8.3 billion yuan (US$1 billion) in the first half of the year, or 0.24 percent, it said in the statement.

 

(China Daily July 19, 2006)