ICBC to negotiate Thai ACL bank confirmed by Thai official

Xinhua Beijing, July 4, according to the Hong Kong Grand Bulletin reported that ICBC to enter the Thai market to make a new outlook, Thai officials for the first time to confirm ICBC plans to acquire ACL bank, but also become a controlling shareholder, but now need to wait for regulators to relax foreign shareholding restrictions.　　A spokesman for the ICBC news agency declined to comment on the rumours. ICBC early in 06 after the listing, there are plans to acquire ACL banks, the original scheduled to be completed by the end of 07, but has been on the issue of holding restrictions on the stalemate.　　Foreign quoted Thai finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij, ICBC is with the Thai government to purchase ACL shares, for the first time local authorities confirmed the deal.　　Korn said ICBC is lobbying the Thai government to relax restrictions on foreign ownership, making it possible to buy more than 49% per cent of the ACL and become a controlling shareholder. At present, foreign investment in Thailand's corporate shareholding ceiling of 49%, the data show that the Treasury holds about 30.6% of the ACL, and is the largest shareholder, while Thailand's largest bank of banks (Bangkokbank) is the ACL second largest shareholder, the proportion of about 19.3%,　　Kositpanpiemras, chairman of Disk Valley Bank, said last month that it had agreed to sell its ACL stakes to ICBC and that ICBC would prefer to buy ACL stakes from the Treasury, but the deal had been dragged down by the local restrictions that had not yet been eased.　　Foreign quoted Korn pointed out that, as the ACL's largest shareholder of the Treasury, the biggest consideration of the transaction, on the one hand, ICBC's purchase pricing, as well as the evaluation of ICBC's entry into the market, whether to increase competition in the local banking industry, more importantly, after the merger of ICBC, the long-term ACL business In fact, a breakthrough in the two-year deal came as Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva focused on the issue of acquiring ACL banks at a meeting with ICBC chairman Jiang Jianqing in Beijing late last month. Abhisit said after the meeting, the Thai central Bank and the Ministry of Finance will take a positive attitude to consider the matter, so that mergers and acquisitions to the dawn, and ICBC deputy Governor Wang earlier also made it clear that the plan is progressing smoothly with confidence to be completed within the year.