OREANDA-NEWS. September 19, 2011. In China, companies are looking for ways to capitalize their assets and "go global". This poses a huge demand of financial services related to fund-raising such as private placement, IPO, bond, cross-border mergers and acquisitions. ICBC, being the first-mover in investment banking business among the domestic commercial banks, leverages its overall competitive advantages to promote development advance of both investment banking and commercial banking, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

In the first half of this year, ICBC has secured more than 23,500 investment banking customers and a business revenue of RMB 13.16 billion, up 51.8% from the year-ago, where revenue from domestic investment banking business surged 48.9% year-on-year to RMB 12.38 billion. ICBC continues to edge ahead of its peers. Today, investment banking is one of the most important sources of income from the intermediary business and plays an increasing role in bolstering the revenue structure of the Bank.

Driving investment banking and commercial banking in parallel is one big agenda item of ICBC to promote investment banking business in China. Under a full life-cycle service model of "bond + equity", "investment banking + commercial banking", the Bank combines the two services to cater to the demand of financial services from the companies in different stages of growth, "establishment, growth, IPO preparation, go public". In the offering of investment banking services, ICBC focuses on the fund-raising requirement of the companies, offering services such as equity financing, restructuring, merger and acquisition, and overseas IPO. Subsequent services including commercial banking, which are deposit, loan, trade finance, settlement, cash management, are provided to customers to ensure seamless connection between direct finance services and indirect finance services.

During the first six months of this year, ICBC's investment banking business plays a dominate role in offering another alternative of obtaining funds for borrowers against the tightened supply of credit loan. Especially equity financing, growth of the business has been impressive. ICBC has a complete service offering, where ICBC acts as the administrating bank for equity investment fund, consultant for private placement, IPO or direct investment. During the first half of the year, the Bank has concluded 32 transactions acting as the administrating bank and raised over RMB 10 billion through private placement for the borrowers, driving the year-on-year growth in revenue to nearly 7-fold. Meanwhile, ICBC has been successful in underwriting and offering business. The Bank has gained a dominate share of the market by underwriting corporate debt instruments to a tune of RMB 136.5 billion during the first six months of this year.

Companies in China are asking for more investment banking services in and outside China as many of them "go global". In light of this, ICBC takes full advantages of holding an overseas investment banking license to open business not allowed in China, such as stock underwriting, brokerage and dealing. Another move is to bring the benefit of the synergy by leveraging its overseas platform to assist domestic branches in looking for new growth points. Today, ICBC has a global service network covering 29 countries and regions.

By extending the nine domestic product lines of investment banking services outside China, ICBC acts first to provide overseas investment banking services to "go global" companies starting from cross-border investment, cross-border acquisitions, overseas IPO, structured finance, and international syndicated loan. ICBC branches, in China and overseas, are working together to provide a range of comprehensive investment banking services for Chinese companies to "go global". In January-June period of this year, ICBC focused on a batch of large projects (Wuhan Iron & Steel Group's acquisition of iron mine in Madagascar, GCL Group's acquisition of a power plant in China), generating a revenue of RMB 580 million, or 94% year-on-year, from M&A business.

ICBC International, the wholly-owned investment banking arm of ICBC in Hong Kong holding a full license, within a short period since its opening to business in 2009 is showing its great potential to win large international IPO mandate and become a formidable player in the international capital market. ICBC International is now the flagship of ICBC's overseas investment banking business. In the first half of this year, ICBC International successfully participated in the IPO of Prada and Ferragamo, the only Chinese investment bank joining the underwriting team for the two global luxury names at the same time. Besides, ICBC International also underwrote 4 bond issues, including the offering of RMB 300 million worth of renminbi-denominated bonds for YFY Cayman Company, the first RMB bonds issued in Hong Kong by a Taiwanese firm. ICBC International has total assets of USD 1.07 billion as of end of June and posts a first-half net gain of USD 16.52 million.