An investment arm of ICBC International Holdings Ltd (工銀國際) may not join the group of Chinese investors set to buy a majority stake in American International Group Inc’s International Lease Finance Corp (ILFC) plane-leasing business.
“ICBC, including its subsidiaries, doesn’t have a plan or a consideration to acquire ILFC,” Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd (中國工商銀行) press officer Wang Zhenning (王振寧) said by telephone on Saturday.
A group including New China Trust Co (新華信託), China Aviation Industrial Fund (中國航空產業基金), and P3 Investments Ltd agreed to buy 80 percent of ILFC for US$4.23 billion, according to a statement on Monday last week from New York-based AIG.
AIG said in the statement that a unit of ICBC International Holdings, the investment banking arm of the world’s biggest bank, and New China Life Insurance Co (新華人壽保險) may also join once the deal is approved.
“The investor group is expected to be expanded to include other investors,” according to an e-mailed statement from Steven Lipin at Brunswick Group, who represents the group, called Jumbo Acquisition Ltd. “Any new investors in Jumbo will be named at that time.”
The statement did not include ICBC or New China Life.
Lipin declined to comment on the exclusion of the companies from the new statement, dated Friday.
AIG spokesman Jon Diat declined to comment on the investors buying ILFC.
The South China Morning Post previously reported that ICBC and New China Life had no plan to join the ILFC deal.
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