Goldman Sachs Group Inc ended a seven-year investment in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC, 中國工商銀行) by selling a US$1.1 billion stake in the world’s largest lender by market value, a person familiar with the matter said.
The US bank sold 1.58 billion shares in ICBC at HK$5.50 each, the person said, asking not to be identified as the information is private.
That is a 2.5 percent discount to ICBC’s closing price on Monday in Hong Kong trading.
The Beijing-based bank fell 1.8 percent to HK$5.54 at 1:04pm, paring its gain for the past year to about 19 percent.
The Wall Street firm joins Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp in cutting holdings in China as new capital rules known as Basel III make it more expensive to hold minority stakes in banks.
Goldman Sachs has reaped about US$12 billion in sales proceeds and dividends from its US$2.58 billion investment in ICBC, calculations by Macquarie Capital Securities Ltd show.
New rules set by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision require punitive capital deductions for holding minority investments in other financial institutions.
Goldman Sachs’ Tier 1 common ratio was about 12.7 percent under Basel I and an estimated 9 percent under Basel III, chief financial officer Harvey Schwartz said last month.
Citigroup sold its entire stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (上海浦東發展銀行) in March last year, nine years after buying it, for an after-tax gain of US$349 million. Bank of America sold 10.4 billion shares of China Construction Bank Corp (中國建設銀行) in November 2011 for a profit of about US$1.8 billion, its fourth sale, leaving it with a 1 percent stake.
Global financial firms, including Temasek Holdings Pte, invested US$33 billion in Chinese lenders from 2001 to 2009, according to the regulator. They still own at least US$45 billion of stakes in local banks, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Since acquiring the stake in ICBC in 2006, Goldman Sachs has recorded US$3.47 billion in net gains on the position, according to company filings through the first quarter of this year.
As of March, Goldman Sachs had a US$1.11 billion position in ICBC on its own balance sheet, down from US$2.08 billion at the end of December last year because of a sale in January, according to the firm’s 10Q filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS