China-Africa: ICBC Gets $220 Million in Dividends From Standard Bank Group
By John Liu
May 25 (Bloomberg) — Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s largest lender by market value, received about 1.8 billion rand ($220 million) of dividends from Standard Bank Group Ltd. after buying a stake in the company last year.
The return on the investment amounted to 7.7 percent, Industrial & Commercial Bank, also known as ICBC, said in an e- mailed statement today. Johannesburg-based Standard Group, Africa’s largest bank, reported a 2 percent gain in net income in 2008 to 13.93 billion rand.
Beijing-based ICBC, which has more customers than Russia has people and $247 billion of cash and equivalents, is reaping returns after spending more than $6 billion on acquisitions in Indonesia, Macau and South Africa over the past two years as rivals overseas sold assets to shore up balance sheets. Chairman Jiang Jianqing aims to triple the share of profit coming from abroad to 10 percent.
State-owned ICBC’s international expansion began in December 2006 with the purchase of 90 percent of PT Bank Halim Indonesia for 90 billion rupiah ($8.8 million). The company has also agreed to buy 79.9 percent of Macau’s third-biggest bank for almost 4.7 billion patacas ($589 million) and bought a fifth of Standard Group for $5.4 billion in March 2008, the largest overseas acquisition by a Chinese bank.
ICBC and Standard Group have cooperated in 65 projects, including funding China Oilfield Services Ltd.’s $2.5 billion purchase of Norway’s Awilco Offshore ASA in September, according to today’s statement.
The partners agreed last week to arrange financing for the expansion of Botswana’s Morupule B power station, which involves the installation of four 150-megawatt coal-fired air-cooled units and is expected to cost about $1.6 billion.
Shares of ICBC will be suspended from trading in Shanghai today because of an annual shareholders meeting. The stock has climbed 20 percent in Shanghai this year.
To contact the reporter on this story: John Liu in Shanghai at jliu42@bloomberg.net
Tags: South Africa