Agricultural Bank of China to Offer 15% Stake in Biggest IPO
June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., the nation’s biggest lender by customers, will sell a 15 percent stake in what may be the world’s largest initial public offering on record.
The state-owned bank plans to sell 22.235 billion shares in Shanghai and 25.411 billion shares in Hong Kong, excluding an over-allotment option, according to a prospectus posted on the securities regulator’s website yesterday. The lender may seek to raise as much as $30 billion, Apple Daily reported last month.
Agricultural Bank will compete for investors’ money with publicly traded rivals that plan to raise a combined $32 billion in stock and bond sales even with bank valuations near record low levels. The offering also comes as the government cracks down on real-estate speculation and Europe’s debt crisis threatens to slow China’s exports, while spurring companies from Hong Kong to Moscow and New York to postpone IPOs.
“Agricultural Bank has to sell what’s so special about itself because the number of shares it’s offering to the market is huge and investors have many banks to choose from,” said Deng Yongming, who helps oversee about $320 million at Changsheng Fund Management Co. in Beijing. “The global and domestic economic picture isn’t rosy either.”
Commonly known as ABC, Agricultural Bank will have 26.73 billion shares outstanding in Hong Kong after the IPO, which includes 25.411 billion shares sold to the public and another 1.32 billion shares held by China’s national-pension fund.
No Price Range
The prospectus did not give a price range for the share sale or an amount that the lender would seek to raise. China’s securities regulator said it will review the IPO plan on June 9.
Agricultural Bank had 320 million customers and 23,624 outlets in China at the end of last year, the prospectus said.
The bank boosted its profit by 26 percent to 65 billion yuan ($9.5 billion) in 2009, and forecasts net income will rise to at least 82.9 billion yuan this year, the statement showed. The Beijing-based lender’s net income increased to 24.97 billion yuan in the first quarter from 18.03 billion yuan a year ago.
Agricultural Bank had a capital adequacy ratio of 10.07 percent at the end of 2009 and its non-performing loan ratio stood at 2.91 percent.
The bank is aiming to maintain a minimum capital adequacy ratio of 11.5 percent from 2010 through 2012. It targets a minimum core capital adequacy ratio of 8.5 percent. Agricultural Bank had 4.14 trillion yuan of outstanding loans at the end of 2009, according to the prospectus.
Biggest IPO
Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. had a capital adequacy ratio of 12.36 percent and a non-performing loan ratio of 1.54 percent as of Dec. 31. The Beijing-based bank raised $22 billion in 2006 in the world’s largest IPO ever.
Chinese banks are under pressure to raise money after an unprecedented 9.59 trillion yuan of new loans last year weakened their capital and raised the risk of a rise in bad debts, and regulators imposed tougher guidelines for financial buffers.
ICBC, China Construction Bank Corp., Bank of China Ltd., and Bank of Communications Co. have announced plans to raise about 182 billion yuan in total selling shares and bonds this year, after the banking regulator raised the mandatory minimum capital adequacy ratio to 11.5 percent.
Agricultural Bank, China’s fourth-largest by assets as of March, is also the least profitable of the four biggest banks to go through a state-led restructuring. It received a $19 billion cash injection from the government and removed 816 billion yuan of non-performing loans from its balance sheet in 2008.
‘Considerable Demands’
“You’ve got a company that has a very dominant position and a huge number of customers,” said Julian Mayo, investment director in London at Charlemagne Capital UK Ltd., which oversees about $3 billion. “The weakness is inefficiency. The price will obviously be very important. It’s been known in the market for some time that banks as a whole have got considerable demands in terms of raising money.”
The sale will come after the Shanghai Composite Index slid 22 percent this year for the worst performance among the world’s 10 largest equity markets. Citigroup Inc. of New York and Paris- based BNP Paribas SA project home prices in China will drop 20 percent this year, after policy makers increased bank reserve requirements three times in three months to slow lending.
Europe’s widening debt crisis has sent the MSCI Emerging Markets Index down 11 percent since the start of May, while at least 26 companies worldwide postponed or withdrew IPOs.
“For Agricultural Bank it’s really bad timing, but they weren’t in a position to predict such bad market conditions,” said Changsheng Fund Management’s Deng.
Less Affluent
Agricultural Bank, established to serve the country’s farmers and less affluent rural areas, may boost the number of shares sold to 25.57 billion in Shanghai and 29.22 billion in Hong Kong after exercising the over-allotment option, accounting for a combined 16.87 percent of the enlarged capital, according to the prospectus.
Excluding the over-allotment, China’s Ministry of Finance will own 40.2 percent of Agricultural Bank after the IPO and Central Huijin Investment Co., a unit of the nation’s $300 billion sovereign wealth fund, will have 40.93 percent. The National Social Security Fund, which spent 15.5 billion yuan for a 3.7 percent stake before the offering, will own 3.87 percent after the sale, according to the prospectus.
China International Capital Corp., Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Macquarie Group Ltd. and Morgan Stanley were hired to arrange the Hong Kong portion of Agricultural Bank’s IPO together with its own investment unit. CICC, Citic Securities Co., China Galaxy Securities Co. and Guotai Junan Securities Co. will manage the bank’s yuan-denominated A-share offering.
--Luo Jun, Bei Hu, Zhao Yidi, with assistance from Zijing Wu in London and Inyoung Hwang, Lee Spears and Michael Tsang in New York. Editors: Brett Miller, Philip Lagerkranser.
Sera igual que el Banco Agrario?