Temasek Increases Stake in ICBC as Goldman Ends Holding

Bloomberg 22 May 2013
Temasek Holdings, Singapore’s state-owned investment company, boosted its stake in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. for the third time in a year as Goldman Sachs Group exited its seven-year-old investment.
Temasek bought 280 million shares in the world’s largest bank by market value at an average price of HK$5.50 a share, or a total of HK$1.54 billion ($198 million), according to a Hong Kong stock exchange statement yesterday. Goldman Sachs raised $1.1 billion by selling 1.58 billion shares in ICBC on the same day, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The purchase underscores Temasek’s interest in China’s largest state-controlled banks, leading it to accumulate $21 billion of holdings in Beijing-based ICBC, China Construction Bank Corp. (939) and Bank of China Ltd. (3988) over the past two years. Global firms including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) have divested holdings as new capital rules known as Basel III make it more expensive to hold minority stakes in banks.
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