Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd has "insufficient" assets overseas and seeks more investments abroad, President Yang Kaisheng said, even as he denied the lender plans to buy a stake in Standard Chartered Plc.  

"ICBC will pursue a combined strategy of acquisitions and new projects in expanding overseas," Yang said at a finance conference in Beijing on Saturday. "Overseas diversification is an important way for Chinese banks to spread risks against cyclical economic downturns."

Having raised 22 billion U.S. dollars in the world's largest share sale a year ago, ICBC, the world's biggest bank by market value, is expanding more aggressively than peers such as Bank of China Ltd. ICBC's 36.7 billion rand (5.4 billion dollars) purchase of a 20-percent stake in South Africa's Standard Bank Group Ltd is the biggest overseas investment by a Chinese company.

"Overseas expansion is likely to continue as Chinese banks are seeking to build up their global presence," Bill Stacey, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Credit Suisse, told Bloomberg News yesterday, citing ICBC's forays in Indonesia and Macau. Yang joined China Construction Bank Corp Deputy President Luo Zhefu in denying a newspaper report that their banks planned to acquire a stake in Standard Chartered Plc from Temasek Holdings Pte, the Singaporean government's investment company.

"We have no plans to buy a stake in Standard Chartered," Luo said, while Yang said the report was "just a rumor."

The Financial Times reported that China's three biggest banks - ICBC, Construction Bank and Bank of China - had approached Temasek to buy a 17-percent stake.

(Shanghai Daily November 26, 2007)