1398.HK - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited
| Previous Close | 5.490 |
| Open | 5.530 |
| Bid | 5.540 x 0 |
| Ask | 5.550 x 0 |
| Day's Range | 5.500 - 5.560 |
| 52 Week Range | 4.810 - 6.190 |
| Volume | 157,835,775 |
| Avg. Volume | 168,290,812 |
| Market Cap | 2.2T |
| Beta (3Y Monthly) | 1.21 |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 5.94 |
| EPS (TTM) | 0.934 |
| Earnings Date | N/A |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | 0.28 (5.13%) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | 2019-06-25 |
| 1y Target Est | 7.53 |
- Reuters
UPDATE 2-China cbank warns high financial risks amid rising economic headwinds
China needs to resolve outstanding financial risks, and must counter risks from "abnormal" market fluctuations that stem from external shocks, said the central bank on Monday, as Beijing prioritises financial stability amid increasing challenges. Financial markets are highly sensitive to global trade situations and rising uncertainties in global liquidity, said the People's Bank of China (PBOC) in its annual financial stability report, adding that it will step up real-time supervision on stock, bond, foreign exchange markets to prevent cross-sector risk contamination. Beijing has stepped up daily supervisions and assessment on potential "black swan" and "grey rhino" events that may occur in the future and has prepared contingency plans, as downward pressure on the economy rises, said the PBOC.
- Simply Wall St.
Is It Time To Consider Buying Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (HKG:1398)?
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (HKG:1398) saw a double-digit share price rise of over 10% in the past...
- Bloomberg
Ex-Billionaire Dragged to Court for $680 Million Unpaid Loan
(Bloomberg) -- Three Chinese banks are suing the brother of Asia’s richest man in a London court for failing to pay back $680 million in defaulted loans.The Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China agreed to loan $925.2 million to Anil Ambani’s firm Reliance Communications Ltd. in 2012 on condition that he provide a personal guarantee, ICBC’s lawyer Bankim Thanki told the court. Some repayments were made by the wireless carrier but in February 2017, it defaulted on its payment obligations.The embattled Indian tycoon says that while he agreed to give a non-binding “personal comfort letter,” he never gave a guarantee tied to his personal assets -- an “extraordinary potential personal liability.” He’s the brother of Mukesh Ambani, who’s worth $56 billion and is the wealthiest man in Asia and 14th richest in the world. Anil, on the other hand, has seen his personal fortune dwindle over recent years, losing his billionaire status.ICBC “failed and continues to fail, to distinguish between Mr. Ambani on the one hand, and the company to whom the loans were being extended...on the other,” Ambani’s lawyer Robert Howe said in a court filing.Anil Ambani was chairman of Reliance Communications, which fell into administration earlier this year. His wider telecommunications-to-infrastructure empire Reliance Group has continued to struggle under a mountain of debt. As of July, four of its biggest units, excluding the phone company, had about 939 billion rupees ($13.2 billion) of debt, Bloomberg reported in September.Anil Ambani was caught up in a similar case earlier this year, when India’s Supreme Court threatened him with prison after Reliance Communications failed to pay to pay 5.5 billion rupees to Ericsson AB’s Indian unit. The judges gave him a month to find the funds, and his brother, Mukesh, stepped in to make the payment.The brothers’ relationship has been fraught since their father’s death left behind a vast empire that was split between them. While Mukesh’s oil and petrochemicals businesses have flourished, Anil’s assets dwindled.According to a court filing, Anil went to Beijing in the winter of 2011 to negotiate the loan with ICBC’s former Chairman Jiang Jianqing directly. The lenders sought a share pledge before granting the loans, but the legal dispute centers on whether Ambani or one of his associates went on to provide a personal guarantee as security.Hasit Shukla, Reliance’s commercial and treasury head, signed a personal guarantee on Ambani’s behalf by power of attorney when the loan was set up seven years ago, Thanki said. But Ambani didn’t give Shukla the authority to sign for him, making the guarantee non-binding, his lawyer Robert Howe said in written submissions.“Mr. Ambani’s position is that the claim made by ICBC in relation to his alleged personal guarantee for loans to RCOM is without merit,” a spokesman for the tycoon said in an email.Industrial & Commercial Bank is the sole claimant in the London case, and is representing itself and the other two lenders.“This is a straightforward debt claim to recover outstanding loans made to RCOM in good faith, and secured by a personal guarantee given by Mr. Anil Ambani,” the banks said in a statement.In Thursday’s court hearing, ICBC’s lawyers asked Judge David Waksman for an early ruling or a conditional order requiring Ambani to pay into court the unpaid sum and interest under the facility agreement. Ambani has declined to give any evidence of his wealth, they said.(Adds details of brother’s relationship in 6th paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Ellen Milligan in London at emilligan11@bloomberg.net;Jonathan Browning in London at jbrowning9@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Christopher ElserFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Simply Wall St.
What Kind Of Shareholders Own Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (HKG:1398)?
If you want to know who really controls Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (HKG:1398), then you'll have...
- Simply Wall St.
What Did Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited's (HKG:1398) CEO Take Home Last Year?
Shu Gu became the CEO of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (HKG:1398) in 2016. This report will, first...
Motley FoolCango Inc. (CANG) Q2 2019 Earnings Call Transcript
CANG earnings call for the period ending June 30, 2019.
- Bloomberg
Ohio's Great Chinese Power Conspiracy Theory
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- An entity dubbing itself “Ohioans For Energy Security” has a warning for the good people of the Buckeye State:The Chinese government is quietly invading our American electric grid; intertwining themselves financially in our energy infrastructure.Before we get into the details of the one-minute ad in which a suitably ominous voice intones those words over much footage of President Xi Jinping, some context: Ohio recently passed legislation to subsidize struggling nuclear and coal-fired power plants, while also weakening incentives for renewable power and energy efficiency. The law benefits several incumbent power companies, especially FirstEnergy Solutions Corp., the bankrupt merchant-generation arm of utility FirstEnergy Corp. In response, opponents are busy gathering signatures for a petition to put a referendum aimed at scrapping the law on the November 2020 ballot.The ad warns Ohioans about such people approaching them to sign. And while the ad doesn’t go on to say this, I think I am duty-bound to point out that those clipboard carriers will not necessarily be sporting identifying markers like Chinese-flag lapel pins or tee-shirts proclaiming “XI LOVES YOU!”As my Bloomberg News colleague Will Wade reports, Carlo LoParo, a spokesperson for OFES, explained that state-controlled Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. has loaned money to several natural-gas-fired power projects in Ohio. Therefore, as those plants gain market share, so Beijing could gain undue influence over the state’s power system.Having rejected “compelling,” I’m struggling to find a word that adequately captures the class of logic on display there. Suffice it to say that loans made to power plants by a bank, state-owned or otherwise, do not actually grant that bank or its shareholders ownership of said plants, let alone influence over the grid they supply. Finance and power-market oversight just doesn’t work that way.LoParo runs a local public relations firm and previously worked on behalf of a group funded by FirstEnergy Solutions that promulgated the bailout legislation(1). He says the ad was “produced in a way to get your attention,” and I can only agree with him on that. When asked how exactly a bank loan would translate to undue influence over the grid, things got a little fuzzier, and he said we just don’t know the terms of the financing. Not knowing would seem like a good reason to hold off airing inflammatory insinuations — especially as loans don’t grant equity-like control — but maybe that’s just me. I also asked LoParo how OFES feels about Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s role as a lender to none other than FirstEnergy itself. An amended agreement from last October attached to the parent company’s last 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission lists the Chinese bank as part of a 23-strong syndicate providing a $2.5 billion credit line to FirstEnergy and several of its subsidiaries.Here’s the thing: That also doesn’t give ICBC any control of FirstEnergy’s operations in Ohio’s power market. But by the comically tortured logic of the OFES ad, surely having a Chinese bank provide credit to the actual owner of the grid presents a similarly sinister challenge? LoParo actually said he would “prefer” FirstEnergy not to take such funding. (A spokesperson told me the company isn’t associated with OFES and doesn’t plan on changing its lending banks.)Indeed, in response to a broader question, he said he would prefer any public or quasi-public Ohio infrastructure project not to take funding from banks controlled by foreign governments. That sounds like a great way to increase the cost of just about everything for Ohioans. One wonders if OFES plans on also going after the federal government over the small issue of who owns all those U.S. Treasuries. As an abattoir of reason, the ad at least comports with the spirit of this bailout. Consider representative William Seitz, a co-sponsor of the law, who declared years ago that when it comes to renewable energy, Ohio’s legislature wouldn’t continue its “march up state mandate mountain.” But now that the mountain happens to be made of coal and uranium, he has scrabbled up with gusto.In its vilification of sinister outside forces, the ad displays a certain despicable cunning. It recasts local energy supply as being about other, national hot-button issues promulgated by President Donald Trump, who carried the state in 2016. We have seen this already, of course, not least in Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s attempt to force through subsidies for coal and nuclear plants on national-security grounds. The Chinese link, tenuous as it is, stokes fear and attempts to connect the prior decade’s decline in manufacturing employment — not confined to Ohio by any means — to the job losses that result from unprofitable old power plants closing. This use of labor issues is an extension of Trump’s pledge to coal miners and seems likely to be weaponized more and more as our energy system changes. Faced with implacable forces of falling costs for newer technologies and rising concern about climate change, rallying support for struggling incumbents on the basis of protecting jobs can be a potent populist tactic.On this front, there is a grim irony to be found in the fact that FirstEnergy Solutions’ emergence from chapter 11 has been delayed due to a dispute with unions about honoring existing collective bargaining agreements. Just as Trump’s love for coal miners has done little to revive their sector, the Ohio state legislature’s subsidies for struggling older plants represent a losing strategy (except for the asset owners). Plus, like OFES’s seeming preference for financial autarky, such subsidies raise costs for everyone, including manufacturers. If folks are worried about interference in Ohio’s grid, they should forget Beijing and start with Columbus.With assistance from Margaret Newkirk(1) He told Wade he has had no interaction with that group on this campaign.To contact the author of this story: Liam Denning at ldenning1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy, mining and commodities. He previously was editor of the Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street column and wrote for the Financial Times' Lex column. He was also an investment banker.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
China's banks face earnings squeeze due to rate reform, trade war uncertainty
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's banks face pressure on earnings and asset quality in the coming months as interest rate reforms squeeze margins and a Chinese-U.S. trade war adds to economic uncertainty. Three of the nation's top listed banks this week each reported a profit rise of nearly 5% in the first half of the year, but warned they faced headwind. "The trade war causes uncertainty, and there is downward pressure on the economy," Gu Shu, president of the world's largest commercial lender, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), told a news conference on Thursday.
- Bloomberg
China AI Startup to File for Hong Kong IPO Soon Despite Protests
(Bloomberg) -- Chinese artificial intelligence startup Megvii is filing documents soon for a Hong Kong initial public offering that could raise as much as $1 billion, people familiar with the matter said, proceeding despite a market downturn spurred by pro-democracy protests across the financial hub.The owner of facial-recognition platform Face++ plans to submit an IPO filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as soon as Friday, one of the people said, asking not to be named because the matter is private. Megvii declined to comment.Megvii is moving forward even as other companies pump the brakes on their Hong Kong listing ambitions, wary of months of protests that have gripped the city. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., a backer of Megvii’s, is among those that are gunning for a Hong Kong listing but have held back to gauge investors’ reception.Megvii’s offering may face particular challenges. It would be the first in a coterie of Chinese AI companies to go public, raising money that would help further China’s effort to lead the sector by 2030. Donald Trump’s administration has raised the alarm about China’s ambitions in technology, which may erode the interest of U.S. money managers in the country’s AI startups."It’s a bit political," said Mark Tanner, founder of Shanghai-based research and marketing company China Skinny. “Trump’s big concern is that China has the aspiration to be the leader in AI.”Megvii’s filing will kick off the formal process for an IPO, though it could be months before its actual debut. Megvii competes with SenseTime Group Ltd. -- also backed by Alibaba -- in facial and object recognition technology and Internet of Things software.The seven-year-old outfit now provides face-scanning systems to companies from iPhone-maker Foxconn Technology Group to Lenovo Group Ltd. and Ant Financial, the payments giant that supports Alibaba’s e-commerce business. Its facial recognition technology has provided verification services to more than 400 million people, Megvii said in a statement in January.Beyond commerce, the company is also building software for sensors and robots. And the Chinese government is a client: Megvii’s AI technology has been used by authorities in more than 260 cities and helped police arrest more than 10,000 people, it said in January. The company last raised $750 million in a Series D financing round in May from investors including China Group Investment, ICBC Asset Management (Global), Macquarie Group and a unit of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Its other backers include Boyu Capital, Ant, SK Group, Foxconn, Qiming Venture Partners and Sinovation Ventures.Megvii could have a first mover’s advantage."IPOs have been pretty disappointing in the past few months, but since AI is a hot category at the moment it could gain more traction," said Tanner.(Adds analyst comment in the fifth paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Lulu Yilun Chen in Hong Kong at ychen447@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net, Edwin Chan, Vlad SavovFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- South China Morning Post
Leadership shuffle at Bank of Jinzhou raises questions about ICBC-led 'investment' in July, as credit drought wrecks damage on regional lenders
Bank of Jinzhou has appointed Guo Wenfeng, 47, to take over the post of governor at the mid-sized regional lender, part of a personnel shake-up affecting half a dozen senior positions, according to filings and news reports since Friday.Guo will be transferred from a current position with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), according to a Hong Kong stock exchange filing. Three other senior appointments will also involve personnel currently with ICBC, according to reports.Analysts said the leadership reshuffle may show that a stake purchase last month led by ICBC was actually a bailout for the lender based in Liaoning province in northeastern China.Bank of Jinzhou grabbed attention in June, after it became the first regional commercial bank to receive credit enhancement from China's central bank.Bank of Jinzhou gets Chinese state backing as ICBC and other financial institutions buy more than 17.3 per cent stake in itEarlier this year Ernst & Young Hua Ming LLP and Ernst & Young resigned as auditors for the bank, citing concerns over loans it had made to institutional customers.The bank's Hong Kong shares have been suspended from trade since April.In late July, three state-owned financial institutions bought a combined 17.3 per cent of shares in the Bank of Jinzhou from existing shareholders.ICBC invested 3 billion yuan (US$435 million) for a 10.8 per cent stake, according to a filing on July 28. Photo: Roy Issa alt=ICBC invested 3 billion yuan (US$435 million) for a 10.8 per cent stake, according to a filing on July 28. Photo: Roy IssaICBC invested 3 billion yuan (US$435 million) for a 10.8 per cent stake, completing the deal through its unit ICBC Financial Asset Investment Co. Two distressed asset managers, China Cinda Asset Management Co and Great Wall Asset Management Co, funded the remaining 7.5 per cent stake.ICBC said it had made "a financial investment" in Bank of Jinzhou, according to its filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on July 28.The leadership reshuffle unveiled Monday, however, would indicated a deeper relationship.S&P; Global Ratings credit analyst Liang Yu said policymakers "are adopting an alternative method of managing troubled banks" following the takeover of Baoshang in May.Reports of Baoshang's rescue triggered a liquidity crunch for smaller lenders, as they were forced to cancel fundraising plans after investors pulled out.Liang said smaller banks continue to face tighter liquidity and funding conditions."The credit spreads between the regional banks and major banks widened materially after the Baoshang Bank takeover. We expect this widened spread to persist for some time," Liang said.Shares of ICBC shed 1.9 per cent to close at HK$5.1 in Hong Kong on Monday, while in Shanghai they fell 1.4 per cent to 5.5 yuan.This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2019 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
- Simply Wall St.
Should You Be Adding Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (HKG:1398) To Your Watchlist Today?
Like a puppy chasing its tail, some new investors often chase 'the next big thing', even if that means buying 'story...
- Reuters
China's ICBC and Cinda Asset Management to take combined 17.3% in Bank of Jinzhou
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country's largest lender by assets, and China Cinda Asset Management, one of China's four largest bad banks, said on Sunday they would take stakes in troubled Bank of Jinzhou. Concern has been growing about Bank of Jinzhou since the Hong Kong-listed lender suspended trading in its shares earlier this year and saw its auditor quit. ICBC's ICBC Financial Asset Investment Co unit signed an equity transfer agreement to invest up to 3 billion yuan ($436 million) in a 10.82% stake of Bank of Jinzhou, it said in a statement filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
