ICBC open to foreign acquisitions

INDUSTRIAL & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) was interested in foreign acquisitions, although it was not pursuing talks with any possible targets, ICBC president Yang Kaisheng said yesterday.

Yang told reporters at a regional summit of the World Economic Forum in the Mexican resort of Cancun that ICBC, China’s largest bank, had eyed several U.S. banks for possible tie-ups. So far, only two domestic banks, Bank of China and Bank of Communications, have branches in the United States, in part because of a legacy of problems in reaching agreements between the U.S. Federal Reserve and Chinese regulators.

Yangtze Power profit drops on rising costs

YANGTZE Power Co., operator of the Three Gorges hydroelectric dam, said yesterday first-quarter profit dropped 40 percent from a year ago due to rising costs and less power generation.

Net income during the first three months of this year fell 30 to 40 percent, while earnings per share slumped 40 to 50 percent, Shanghai-listed Yangtze Power said in a statement, refuting a previous media report that its first-quarter earnings had risen by 20 percent. The drop in profit was partly caused by rising costs, policy changes and the impact of depreciation, the company said.

Bank of Nanjing net up more than 170%

BANK of Nanjing Co., which lists A shares in Shanghai, estimated yesterday that net profit surged at least 170 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier.

The bank, based in China’s affluent eastern province of Jiangsu, cited rising interest and fee incomes, rapidly growing value in its bond holdings and a lower corporate tax rate. In the first quarter of last year, the bank made a profit of 151.1 million yuan (US$21 million), or 0.13 yuan per share.

Tsingtao Brewery says tax rate to cut profit

TSINGTAO Brewery Co. said yesterday that 2007 profit would be cut after the government applied a higher tax rate to its earnings.

The Hong Kong and Shanghai-listed company would pay income taxes at a 33 percent rate for 2007 instead of 15 percent, it said in a statement. Tsingtao Brewery said in August its first-half income tax rate was 15 percent. Profit for the first nine months of 2007 was 560 million yuan (US$80 million) with the new tax rate and 695 million yuan without, Tsingtao Brewery said. The company will report full-year earnings April 22.