The story
Background
Following the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, China adopted a so-called monobank system in which all financial operations were operated by the People's Bank of China (PBC). In 1978–1979, the Chinese authorities initiated banking reform, whose effect was to transform the PBC into a proper central bank while specialized commercial banks were formed under its watch. This resulted in the gradual establishment of a two-tier banking system.
1984–2006
By rights of a contradiction within the economic functioning of the government of China, the People's Republic, the State Council of China, during September 1983 made a decision to separate certain activities of the government to an exclusively operating organisation, subsequently named the Industrial and Commercial bank of China, established on 1 January 1984. ICBC was then the fourth of the four specialist banks of 1978–1979 to be made, from the taking of control of commercial activities ("industrial credit and savings business") from People's Bank of China so that the latter might be transformed to a newly made central bank. ICBC focused on the intermediation of deposits.
ICBC opened its first overseas branch in Singapore in 1993. It opened a branch in Luxembourg in 1999, which became its European headquarters in 2011. In 2000, ICBC acquired the Union Bank of Hong Kong and renamed it ICBC (Asia). A Hong Kong-listed entity, ICBC (Asia) then purchased the Hong Kong subsidiary of Fortis Bank, originally the Hong Kong branch of the Banque Belge pour l'Étranger, and rebranded it under its own name on 10 October 2005.
In June 2005, ICBC established ICBC Credit Suisse Asset Management as a China joint venture with Credit Suisse First Boston and COSCO, with the three partners respectively holding 55, 25, and 20 percent of the venture's equity. Subsequently, ICBC bought out COSCO's stake and acquired an additional 5 percent from Credit Suisse.
As of 2006, ICBC had 2.5 million corporate customers and 150 million individual customers.
Initial public offering
In the runup to its planned initial public offering, on 28 April 2006, three "strategic investors" injected US$3.7 billion into ICBC:
Goldman Sachs purchased a 5.75% stake for US$2.6 billion, the largest sum Goldman Sachs has ever invested.
Dresdner Bank invested US$1 billion.
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American Express invested US$200 million.
ICBC was simultaneously listed on both the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Shanghai Stock Exchange on 27 October 2006. It was the world's largest initial public offering at that time valued at US$21.9 billion, surpassing the previous record US$18.4 billion IPO by Japan's NTT DoCoMo in 1998. In 2010, Agricultural Bank of China broke ICBC's IPO record when it raised $22.1 billion. China's largest commercial bank was also the first company to debut simultaneously on both the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges.
ICBC raised at least US$14 billion in Hong Kong (H-shares) and another US$5.1 billion in Shanghai (A-shares). Due to heavy subscriptions, the greenshoe (i.e. over-allotment) placements were exercised and ICBC's take rose to US$21.9 billion (17% of ICBC's market value before the IPO), divided in US$16 billion in Hong Kong and US$5.9 billion in Shanghai. Following the global offering, the free float of shares was 22.14% of the market capitalization.
At the end of its first day of trading, the bank's shares closed up almost 15% at HK$3.52 in Hong Kong, compared with the listing price of HK$3.07, which was set at the top of the indicative range due to the strong demand. According to Bloomberg, ICBC's market capitalisation at the end of trade based on its Hong Kong shares was US$156.3 billion, making its equity the world's fifth highest among banks, just behind JPMorgan Chase. Meanwhile, ICBC's Shanghai-listed A-shares recorded more modest gains and ended up 5.1% from the offering price of RMB 3.12.
Later developments
In July 2007, ICBC was ranked 30th in the world in terms of revenue.
In August 2008, ICBC became the second Chinese bank since 1991 to gain US federal approval to establish a branch in New York City. ICBC had signed a lease with the Trump Organization for office space in the Trump Tower in 2008. ICBC was Trump Tower's largest office tenant as of 2012. By October 2020, Donald Trump received $5.4 million from ICBC via the Trump Tower lease.
In June 2009, ICBC spent 80.25 million Canadian dollars (US$58.53 million) to acquire a 70% stake in the Bank of East Asia (BEA). By the end of 2009, the number of credit cards issued exceeded 52 million, a 33% increase equivalent to nearly 13 million cards compared to the previous year. Including other types of bank cards, this bank has issued more than 280 million cards, becoming the 4th largest credit card issuer in the world.
On 24 January 2011, ICBC opened a branch office in Madrid. On 20 May 2011, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. established two branches in Pakistan, one in Karachi and the other in Islamabad. On 18 August 2011, ICBC passed the examination from State Bank of Pakistan and started its business in Pakistan.
During November 2012, ICBC acquired from Standard Bank an 80% stake (valued at $600 million) of the former subsidiary of BankBoston in Argentina, which Standard Bank had purchased in 2006. This was the largest operation of a Chinese bank in Latin America. In Argentina, the bank has ~1,000,000 individual customers, ~30,000 companies of all categories and more than 1600 corporate companies.
During the 2013 Korean crisis, ICBC halted business with a North Korean bank accused by the United States of financing Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs.
It was announced at the end of July 2013 that South Africa's Standard Bank was in talks to sell its markets business in London to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China for more than $500 million. The transaction was completed on 1 February 2015, after which the London-based operation has been known as ICBC Standard Bank.
In 2014, ICBC was the largest company in the world according to the Forbes Global 2000 list, with revenue reaching US$148.7 billion and profit amounting to US$42.7 billion. On 24 September 2014, ICBC Kuwait Branch officially opened in Kuwait City as the first and currently the only Chinese bank in Kuwait. Meanwhile, it is also the fourth branch of ICBC in the Middle East, following branches in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha. On 25 May 2015, the Company further strengthened its presence in the Middle East and Europe by purchasing Turkey's TekstilBank and forming its ICBC Turkey subsidiary.
ICBC Financial Services, the bank's brokerage unit, provided about $88 billion of repo financing at the end of 2015, up from $59 billion two years ago, according to regulatory filings. The figures are before netting agreements that can be used to reduce overall assets and liabilities. Almost all the repo financing that ICBC provides is on U.S. government bonds.
On 18 November 2016, the bank obtained a license to take deposits in Russia. ICBC launched robo-advisor service to its wealth-management operations in 2017. As of April 2019, ICBC had lent US$100 billion for Belt and Road Initiative projects. In BRI-participating countries, ICBC has 124 branches.
In November 2023, the bank was subject to a ransomware attack, preventing certain trades from clearing. The attack was against the US unit of ICBC, which at the time was considered the world's largest lender by assets, as reported by Bloomberg. The bank was hacked by LockBit, a ransomware group described by Bloomberg as "a criminal gang with ties to Russia." The attack against ICBC resulted in the bank being unable to clear a large number of US Treasury trades over the next day and forced others to reroute orders, upsetting normal operations. Lockbit ultimately claimed that the bank paid the ransom, a statement which Reuters was unable to verify.
From Wikipedia’s article on Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4