(6 September 2005 – China) Standard Chartered is finally set to invest US$123 million for a 19.99 percent stake in China’s Bohai Bank.The deal, which has been on the table since late 2004, marks the first time Standard Chartered has invested in mainland China, despite the bank’s strong focus on Asia.
Bohai Bank, for its part, is the first national commercial bank to have been established in China in eight years.
Standard Chartered chairman Bryan Sanderson said the current environment was the “most exciting” time in the bank’s 150 years of operating in the Chinese market.
“The place is growing very rapidly and the banking sector is growing as a multiple of that,” he said.
The stake in Bohai Bank, which is located in Tianjian city in northern China, gives Standard Chartered access to some $1.5 trillion worth of savings.
At the moment, individual foreign banks can only take a 20 percent stake in a Chinese bank but China’s banking markets will be fully opened by the end of 2006.