Investment bank China International Capital Corp (CICC, 中金公司) and brokerage China Investment Securities Co (中信證券), firms with 186 billion yuan (US$28 billion) of assets last year, are in talks on a possible merger, people familiar with the matter said.
There is no guarantee the talks would lead to a transaction and the structure of any deal is yet to be decided, the people said, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private.
CICC shares yesterday jumped on the news, trading as much as 3.7 percent higher in Hong Kong. They were up 1.9 percent as of 1:30pm.
Linking up could be “a good deal for CICC,” said Lucas Wang, a Hong Kong-based analyst at First Shanghai Securities Ltd.
“CICC’s strength has been with high net-worth individuals and corporate clients; the network and mass-market client base of China Investment Securities will be a good fit,” Wang said.
Shenzhen-based China Investment Securities is fully owned by Central Huijin Investment Ltd (中央匯金), which is a unit of China’s sovereign wealth fund and holds stakes in the nation’s biggest financial institutions.
Huijin owns 28.4 percent of Beijing-based CICC, the companies’ Web sites show.
CICC, which listed in Hong Kong in November last year, had 94.1 billion yuan of assets at the end of last year, while China Investment Securities had 92.2 billion yuan, according to the Web sites.
There was no immediate response to an e-mail sent to the Beijing-based press office of Central Huijin’s parent, China Investment Corp, and no one answered a call to China Investment Securities seeking comment.
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