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China Merchants Bank (CMB), the sixth-largest mainland lender, has received approval from the Hong Kong regulator for its US$2-billion H-share listing, sources said yesterday.

 

People closed to the deal said the Hong Kong bourse has given the green light for CMB's H-share initial public offering (IPO) and the pre-marketing activities of the deal are expected to begin next week.

 

"The fast approval of the H-share listing is widely expected, since CMB has already listed in the A-share market, which sharply shortens the time for the application process," added Louis Wong, director of Philip Asset Management.

 

The Shanghai-listed firm intends to sell up to 2.53 billion shares in Hong Kong, or 17 percent of the company's enlarged share capital, raising about US$2 billion. China International Capital and JP Morgan have been assigned as underwriters for the IPO.

 

CMB is the fourth Stated-owned bank to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange following Bank of Communications, China Construction Bank and Bank of China.

 

It will list earlier than the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), which is expected to simultaneously list in Hong Kong and Shanghai in October.

 

CMB currently has 79,000 high-end customers, each with deposits of at least 500,000 yuan (US$62,000). It has a strong credit business, accounting for about 30 percent of the mainland's credit card business, having issued 6.5 million cards.

 

Analysts predicted the bank's earnings would increase this year by 46 percent to 5.47 billion yuan (US$684 million), rising by a further 28 percent to 7 billion yuan (US$875 million) in 2007.

 

CMB's capital adequacy ratio dropped to 8.4 percent from 9.1 percent at the end of 2005 and its loans grew 17 percent year-on-year to 5.165 billion (US$684 million) in the first half of the year.

 

CMB is regarded by many fund managers as one of the best commercial banks on the mainland in terms of efficiency, management and service quality.

 

The only shortcoming would be its relatively small scale, said Wong.

 

(China Daily August 18, 2006)