BOCI Awarded 'Best Investment Bank' in North Asia

The Emerging Markets announced on its ADB Edition Friday 14 May 2004 the results of its 'Best Banks in North Asia', in which Bank of China International Holdings Limited(BOCI) won the award for 'Best Investment Bank' in North Asia.

The Newspaper said in the statement that BOCI is 'one of the just two institutions' of the country, to 'have won permission from China's cabinet, the State Council, to engage in a full range of investment-banking activities both inside and outside China', and is 'the only Chinese investment bank that's able to underwrite on its own the overseas listing of large state owned enterprises, and actively underwrites issues by mainland and Hong Kong companies'.

Incorporated in Hong Kong, BOCI is the Bank of China Group's investment banking arm, providing a wide range of corporate finance, retail and institutional equity sales, debt capital markets arranging and asset management services.

As China's first investment bank, BOCI has been operating abroad for over 20 years. Today, BOCI has the strongest investment banking team, the largest independent distribution network, the largest amount of assets under management and the most globalised operations of any mainland investment banks operating in China and abroad. Up to the end of 2002, BOCI had acted as sponsor or lead underwriter in 53 Hong Kong and other international equity offerings and as underwriter for 154 listings, altogether raising over HK$376.1 billion in capital for clients.

In 2001, BOCI acted as the global co-ordinator, leading underwriter and sponsor of the listing of CNOOC, which saw critical acclaim. The offering was cited by Asia Money as "Equity Fundraising Deal of the Year" and by IFR as "2001 China Equity Issue". In 2002, BOCI acted as the joint global co-ordinator, bookrunner and sponsor of the IPO of Bank of China (Hong Kong), the largest banking IPO in Hong Kong that year.

The IPO project of BOC(HK) was nominated Deal of the Year by several famous financial publications including IFR, Finance Asia, and the Asset. In early 2003, BOCI played a key role and made outstanding achievement in the Sinotrans IPO, one of the major projects in HongKong that year, as the joint global coordinator, joint lead-manager, joint sponsor, and joint book-runner.

BOCI is now continuing to pursue its own development strategy and corporate governance restructuring. Working closely with the Group's commercial banking and insurance operations, BOCI aims to provide a comprehensive range of services to clients and strives to establish a global, competitive, first-rate integrated investment bank in the Chinese and overseas markets.