China' s Huarong Asset Management Co. said Tuesday it had opened a bank in central China' s Hunan province, becoming the first asset management company in China to start banking operations.
Huarong Asset Management and Hunan provincial government Tuesday jointly initiated the Huarong Xiangjiang Bank with registered capital of 4.08 billion yuan (611.4 million U.S. dollars).
Huarong Asset Management has a controlling stake of 50.98 percent in the bank, while the other shareholders own the remaining shares.
Currently, the new bank' s capital adequacy ratio is over 16 percent, the provisional coverage rate is more than 150 percent, and the non-performing loan rate is under 0.1 percent.
In 1999, China set up four asset management companies, including Huarong, to deal with bad loans spun off from banks. Huarong is the first among the four to set up a commercial bank.
