State-owned Bank of Communications (Bocom), China's fifth largest bank, reportedly transferred non-performing loans with a face value of US$4.95 billion (RMB 41.1 billion) to China Cinda Asset Management last month. The move, reported by the South China Morning Post quoting unnamed sources, comes ahead of a planned listing and a possible 19.99% stake sale to HSBC. The People's Bank of China partially financed the deal. Combined with a planned write-off of another RMB 11.8 billion of bad debt, Bocom will lower NPLs to under 5% of their loan book. In June, the central bank funded Cinda when it took on NPLs with a combined face value of RMB 278.7 billion from Bank of China and China Construction Bank to help them clean up their balance sheets ahead of planned listings.
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