Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank are gearing up to protest a decision by the Bank of China (BOC) to hire rivals Goldman Sachs, UBS and Bank of China International (BOCI) to underwrite its US$5 billion overseas IPO next year, the South China Morning Post reported, citing unnamed sources.
Merrill and Deutsche are expected to argue unfair competition, as they point out the decision had been made in advance, although Deutsche emerged with the highest score in a "beauty parade", followed by Merrill, UBS, JP Morgan and Goldman. Merrill advised a consortium led by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which agreed to buy a 10% stake in BOC for US$3.1 billion, while Deutsche has been advising the Singapore's Temasek Holdings in talks to buy another 10% of BOC.
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