CHINA / National |
State lender to go commercial(China Daily)Updated: 2007-08-06 06:37
China Development Bank (CDB), the country's largest policy-oriented lender, has worked out a plan to transform itself into a full-fledged commercial bank. As part of the proposed plan now being reviewed by the State Council, the country's cabinet, the CDB hopes to inject at least $20 billion as capital from Central Huijin Investment Corp to help the reform process, said a source who didn't want to be named. "But the CDB and Central Huijin are yet to finalize the terms of their agreement because they are still in talks," the source said. The CDB that recently backed the Barclays Bank of England financially in its bid for ABN Amro is a State-owned enterprise. The National Audit Office (NAO) has already started auditing CDB's accounts, the source said. Between now and next month, the NAO will determine the quality of the bank's assets and its management capability for using State capital. But it's not clear how long CDB's restructuring process will take, BOC International Securities analyst Yuan Lin said. The CDB is 100 percent owned by the State Council, with the Ministry of Finance acting as the representative of the shareholders. So it would be premature to say how the equity structure will change, Yuan said. According to CDB's latest figures, the bank's net assets' value will increase from 158 billion yuan ($21 billion) to 300 billion yuan ($40 billion) or more after the capital investment from Central Huijin. Bank to get $40b for reform Central Huijin Investment Corp, the central bank's investment arm, plans to invest $40 billion in the Agricultural Bank of China, the Economic Observer reported over the weekend. The cash injection will be a big step in the long-awaited shareholding reform of the bank, the last of China's "big four" lenders that have yet to be listed. The $40 billion will come from a foreign exchange (forex) investment agency to be set up soon. The agency will manage part of China's $1.33 trillion forex reserve, the newspaper said, citing unnamed sources. A month ago, China's legislature authorized the Ministry of Finance to issue 1.55 trillion yuan ($200 billion) in special treasury bonds to fund the setting up of the forex agency. The agency will use $65 billion of the total funds to take over Central Huijin, the newspaper said. The report gave no further details, and Agricultural Bank officials were unavailable for comments. The central government set the tone for the Agricultural Bank's restructuring at the beginning of the year, although detailed plans have not been worked out. But it is generally believed that the bank will follow the restructuring steps of the other three big commercial banks: government capital investment, dealing with non-performing loans, setting up shareholding companies, introducing strategic investors and seeking opportunities for listing. "It's for capital investment, no doubt, but the amount is to be determined by its financial status - how much it needs to peel off its bad assets and raise its capital adequacy ratio to the regulatory requirement of above 8 percent," Renmin University of China professor Zhao Xijun said. |
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