Citic Pacific to buy parent’s assets

Conglomerate Citic Pacific (0267.HKG) will buy US$36 billion worth of banking and brokerage assets from its parent as China encourages state-owned enterprises to list their assets in public companies, Bloomberg reported. It will pay RMB49.9 billion in cash and issue almost 16.6 billion shares at HK$13.48 each, as well as raise funds from a separate share sale, according to a Hong Kong exchange filing on Wednesday. Parent Citic Group Corp. will hold 75-85% of the combined business, it said. Beijing hopes that shifting assets of SOEs to their Hong Kong-listed subsidiaries will force SOEs to clean up their act and become more efficient.