国内英语新闻:China's largest lender completes dual rights issue

BEIJING, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China's largest lender by market value, announced Thursday that it has completed its 44.9 billion yuan(about 6.75 billion U.S. dollar) rights issue in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

The dual-listed lender said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange that it had raised 13.04 billion Hong Kong dollars (about 11.18 billion yuan) from the Hong Kong portion of its rights issue by selling 3.74 billion shares at a price of 3.49 Hong Kong dollars.

The Beijing-based bank said it had sold 11.3 billion shares at 2.99 yuan in the Shanghai market, which was 99.72 percent subscribed and had raised 33.67 billion yuan in late November.

The ICBC said the fund raising aimed to replenish its capital base.

The bank's core capital adequacy ratio stood at 9.33 percent by the end of September this year, while its capital adequacy ratio was 11.57 percent. In the first three quarters of this year, the ICBC saw net profits up 27.1 percent year on year to 127.8 billion yuan.

Shares of the bank closed flat at 4.18 yuan in Shanghai and was down 0.35 percent to 5.7 Hong Kong dollars in Hong Kong.