THE Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Singapore branch is launching investment banking services after receiving accreditation as an issue manager from Singapore Exchange Ltd.

ICBC Singapore, as the first overseas institution of ICBC Group, was awarded the Qualifying Full Bank License by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2012. ICBC Singapore offers financial products and services, such as corporate banking, financial institutional banking, global cash management, private banking as well as retail banking.

Geng Hao, deputy general manager of ICBC Singapore, said, “We are delighted to be accredited as an issue manager by SGX, which allows us to provide a full range of investment banking services to our clients. With the continuous progression of Belt and Road initiatives as well as the increase in economic cooperation between China and Singapore, we have seen strong interest from Chinese companies to tap into Singapore’s capital markets. As China’s largest bank and the official RMB clearing bank of Singapore, ICBC Singapore will continue to work closely with SGX to promote Singapore’s capital markets to Chinese businesses.”

“Tapping on our massive network of clientele in China, our initial focus will be on real estate developers and property owners in Tier 1 and 2 cities in China as potential listing candidates for REITs and Business Trusts on SGX. We will also zoom in on sectors such as healthcare, consumer and technology for non REITs/BT IPOs. Another area of our business focus will be corporate finance advisory services, which include follow-on fund raisings, reverse takeovers, M&A advisory services, private equity and pre-IPO fund raisings. Companies from South-East Asia including Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia will also be our targeted potential clients.”

Mohamed Nasser Ismail, head of equity capital market (SME) and head of capital market development at SGX says, “SGX and ICBC have been working closely to promote the Singapore capital market to Chinese companies since the MOU signed in 2016. We are excited to see ICBC now joining the pool of growing capital market professionals in Singapore and look forward to seeing ICBC bring quality new listings to the Singapore market.”