BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) – Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) Banking announced recently that it sold its 20 percent stakes in Shanghai Rural Commercial Banks (SRCB) to China COSCO Shipping Corp. and Shanghai Sino-Poland Enterprise Management Development Corp for 1.8 billion Australian dollars (approximately 1.32 billion U.S. dollars).
The deal is conductive to simplify the company’s business and improve its capital returns, said Graham Hodges, ANZ’s deputy chief executive officer.
According to the ANZ Bank,the sale price represents a price-to-book ratio of about 1.1 times the SRCB’s net assets as at December 2015, and the sale will also increase ANZ’s tier-1 capital ratio by 40 basis points.
The deal, agreed on Dec.31, is subject to conditions and regulatory approvals.
It is expected that the deal will be completed by mid 2017.
Enditem (Edited by Yang Yifan, yangyifan@xinhua.org)
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