Tag Archives: BOCHK

Bottom line: Bank of China’s plan to create a Southeast Asian unit around its Hong Kong-based BOCHK looks like a smart move that will give investors a chance to buy shares of its more commercially-focused global operations.

Chinese banks have always been a difficult investment option for westerners due to their heavy reliance on China, where they take orders from Beijing leaders that use them as an economic policy tool rather than letting them act like real commercial lenders. The banks’ international operations are more interesting from an investor’s perspective, as they tend to behave more commercially because they have to competite in markets where they don’t enjoy any special government-granted advantages.

The problem is that international operations are usually just a tiny business for most of the big Chinese banks, even as industry leaders ICBC (HKEx: 1398; Shanghai: 601398) and Bank of China (HKEx: 3988; Shanghai: 601988) spend billions of dollars on offshore acquisitions and other overseas expansion. That’s why a new plan by Bank of China looks particularly exciting, as it will finally give stock buyers an option to invest exclusively in the company’s offshore operations, in this case in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.  Read Full Post…