ICBC 1398

[winston]

Sold a few weeks back:-

ICBC upbeat on 50pc net leap

Friday, July 04, 2008

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (1398) is confident its first-half result will be 50 percent higher than last year's owing to better business growth and a lower tax rate.

The mainland's largest lender in terms of assets recorded a net profit of 40.844 billion yuan (HK$46.47 billion) in the first six months of last year, or 12 fen a share.

This means that its net profit for the first half may exceed 61.266 billion yuan, according to Chinese accounting standards. ICBC shares rebounded by 0.42 percent in Shanghai to close at 4.75 yuan but fell by 4 percent in Hong Kong to HK$5.01.

ICBC was the first to offer a rosy profit outlook amid a host of Chinese firms issuing profit warnings due to higher energy and commodity prices.

[LenaHuat]

Since I track ICBC, here's a development worthy of noting:

The insurance regulator said Tuesday it has received applications from the country's four major banks to invest in insurance companies and is now working on the related rules with the banking regulator.

"We have received applications from Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications and Bank of Beijing to buy stakes in insurers," Yuan Li, spokesman for the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, said at a quarterly briefing in Beijing, adding that the regulator will submit these to the State Council after consideration.

Yuan also said that China Insurance Protection Fund Company would be set up after completing the legal process. And the fund would transfer its 30.55 percent stake in New China Life Insurance at the right time.

"The preparation work is going smoothly, and the regulator is revising the management rules on the insurance protection fund," said Yuan.

Industry statistics show that by the end of last year, the scale of the fund had exceeded 10 billion yuan. In August 2007, the fund acquired 366.65 million shares of New China Life Insurance for 2.2 billion yuan, becoming the insurer's largest shareholder.

Meanwhile, to boost insurers' investment return, especially under a sluggish stock market, the regulator has cautiously allowed insurers to diversify their investment portfolios.

"We will gradually widen the pilot program for insurance companies' investment in infrastructure projects and further expand their overseas investment," Yuan said.

He added that the regulator's capital operating department is now working on the management rules for insurers' investment in infrastructure projects, but he declined to reveal the details.

Sources said earlier this month that authorities might allow some insurers to invest up to 8 percent of their assets in infrastructure projects so they can diversify out of shares and bonds.

Given the industry's more than 3 trillion yuan total assets, there might be 240 billion yuan flowing into the infrastructure sector.

"For most insurance companies, around 80 percent of premiums still went to bonds and bank deposits, which could hardly ensure a satisfactory investment return," said a head of a joint venture insurer's investment department. "Since infrastructure investment could bring in steady income in the long term, it is a perfect match for insurers' assets."

[winston]

Not vested.

ICBC says it has become world's most profitable bank

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the nation's top lender, said Thursday it had become the world's most profitable bank in the first half after earning 64.879 billion yuan (HK$73.89 billion).

''According to all the interim results that have been announced so far, ICBC has become the most profitable bank in the world in the first half of 2008,'' the bank said in a statement issued before a briefing in Beijing.

ICBC said its US9.4 billion (HK$73.32 billion) profit after tax in the first six months of the year marked an increase of 56.75 percent from the same period in 2007. Pre-tax profit figures were not immediately available.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

[winston]

Not many heads of global banks earn less than Jiang Jianqing, chairman of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. Jiang's $260,000 salary last year was less than 1 percent of the $27.8 million JPMorgan Chase & Co. paid Jamie Dimon.

Jiang has been making plenty of money for ICBC shareholders. ICBC's stock price is up about 80 percent from its $22 billion initial public offering in October 2006 - the world's largest - to 5.53 Hong Kong dollars on June 25.

The bank's market capitalization of US$252 billion is almost twice that of JPMorgan, making ICBC the largest publicly traded financial institution on the planet.

– Bloomberg

[winston]

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. earned a record 64.5 billion yuan ($9.42 billion) in the first half to become the world's most profitable bank as a focus on domestic lending helped it avoid the global credit crisis.

Net income rose 57 percent, the Beijing-based bank said in a statement today, topping the $7.72 billion earned by closest rival HSBC Holdings Plc. Earnings per share rose to 0.19 yuan.

Chairman Jiang Jianqing has more than doubled ICBC's profit since 2005 as annual economic growth of more than 10 percent bolstered corporate loans and services to the nation's growing number of wealthy people.

ICBC's domestic bias shielded it from the U.S. subprime crisis that has led to more than $500 billion of writedowns and losses at financial institutions globally.

"This shows the rise of economic power in China," said Yuk Kei Lee, an analyst at Core Pacific-Yamaichi International in Hong Kong.

– Bloomberg

[winston]

ICBC profit up 25pc

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (1398) posted a 25.8 percent increase in net profit for the third quarter, attributed to higher interest and fee income.

ICBC said it reported a net profit of 28.2 billion yuan (HK$31.9 billion) for the three months ended September, up from 22.4 billion yuan a year earlier.

The bank disclosed it held US subprime-related securities, Alt-A residential mortgage-backed securities of US$1.86 billion (HK$14.5 billion) in total, equivalent to 0.14 percent of the its total assets.

Bonds related to Lehman Brothers amounted to US$152 million, or 0.01 percent of its total assets. ICBC said it had set an allowance of US$1.3 billion for impairment losses on subprime related assets.

[winston]

Not vested.

Goldman Sachs increases ICBC stake

Goldman Sachs Group spent HK$88 million raising its stake in Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, one day after posting its first quarterly loss since going public in 1999.

Goldman Sachs bought 20.5 million ICBC shares at an average HK$4.309, according to a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange. The purchase was made on the open market on December 17.

Goldman Sachs invested US$2.5 billion (HK$19.5 billion) in ICBC before it went public in 2006, and agreed not to sell the holding until April 28 next year. The stake was worth US$8.9 billion as of Tuesday. It now owns 16.616 billion shares, or 4.97 percent of ICBC, the world's largest bank by market value.

BLOOMBERG

[kennynah]

The bank disclosed it held US subprime-related securities, Alt-A residential mortgage-backed securities of US$1.86 billion (HK$14.5 billion) in total, equivalent to 0.14 percent of the its total assets.

If USD1.86bil represents only 0.14% of ICBC's assets, then ICBC has USD1.328 trillion in assets....choon boh ?

[la papillion]

K - lord of lew lian, the jolly ol' waving santa - is very sharp 1 trillion USD seems to be like the magnitude of the whole subprime, haha!

[kennynah]

hahaha lapap... usd1 trillion would be 66% of the entire PRC's treasury reserves (which today stands at ~USD1.5trillion)...therefore not very likely ICBC's assets are that much, right?