Bank of China (BOC) has acquired 83.5 percent of BOC International Investment Management Co. Ltd., a joint venture fund management company between BOC and BlackRock,Inc., to become the Chinese commercial bank which holds the largest shares of a fund company, said the bank in a statement on Wednesday.
Before the acquisition, BOC International Securites, BOC International Holdings Ltd. and a foreign investor now operating under the BlackRock name held 67 percent, 16.5 percent and 16.5 percent of the joint venture's shares respectively.
The BOC spokesman Wang Zhaowen said the bank had acquired the shares held by BOC International Securities and BOC International Holdings Ltd. and become the fund company's direct shareholder. BlackRock has the remaining 16.5 percent.
The fund company has also announced a name change to Bank of China Investment Management Co. Ltd. (BOCIM).
After the share acquisition, BOC had become a financial holding group which owns banks, insurance and securities companies as well as fund companies, Wang said.
"It will help increase the value of the BOC brand name," he said.
Chen Ru, president of BOCIM, said the move would contribute to building up the strength of the fund company.
BOCIM was officially opened in 2004 as a result of the partnership of the BOC units and Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) which merged with BlackRock in 2006. It operates four mutual funds in China, which have climbed by around 30 percent in net value for the past six months.
Fears of a U.S. recession and concerns about widening losses among top global financial institutions such as Citigroup from the subprime mortgage crisis, have put Asian stock markets under pressure.
Citigroup reported a 9.83 billion dollar fourth quarter loss overnight, largely due to 18.1 billion dollars in subprime-related write downs.
The share price of BOC slipped by more than two percent in the afternoon trade. Chinese benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell 2.6 percent to 5,302.64 by midday.
Source: Xinhua
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