State Council endorses the bank's restructuring plan, which allows the listed company to select its best assets
China Construction Bank (CCB), the mainland's third-largest lender, is one step closer to a stock-market flotation after the State Council approved its pre-listing corporate restructuring, the bank has announced on its website.
As part of the overhaul, China Construction Bank Shareholding will be set up as a listing vehicle and will pick the best assets and staff from the existing institution before going public. Bread-and-butter commercial operations, including deposits and loans, trade finance, credit cards, and derivatives and equities trading, will go into the listed firm.
The listed joint-stock company will own the branches and use the trademark of the original CCB.
Non-banking assets would be left with a holding company, China Construction Bank Group, CCB said on its website yesterday. Analysts presumed that many of CCB's non-performing assets, even those lying squarely within the banking business, would also be offloaded on the unlisted firm.
'The aim of the revamp is to raise the overall competitiveness of the bank,' a spokesman was quoted as saying yesterday.
The separation will allow a listed CCB to report a lower non-performing loan (NPL) ratio and a stronger capital adequacy ratio, which will help enhance the risk resistance and competitiveness of the joint-stock company.
