Bank of America has sold its shares in the China Construction Bank:
HONG KONG – Bank of America Corp. sold part of its stake in China Construction Bank for some $7.3 billion as the U.S. lender seeks to raise billions more to help withstand the recession.
The U.S. bank unloaded more than 13.5 billion shares, or a nearly 6 percent stake, in China Construction, the Chinese company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange late Wednesday.
Buyers included China Life Insurance and its affiliates, as well as an unidentified foreign fund and BOCI Asia, an investment banking arm of the Bank of China. China Construction is the country’s second-biggest lender.
Here’s my question. As a condition of joining the WTO China was supposed to improve the transparency of its banks and increase their level of foreign ownership. IIRC they were very slow to do so and haven’t really met their obligations in that area yet.
Does this sale by Bank of America constitute a serious retrenchment of foreign ownership of Chinese banks? I’m not assigning blame here just asking a question. Perhaps one of my more knowledgeable readers might comment.
