Bulletin: Bank of China (Hong Kong) Ltd. Ratings Not Affected By Plan To Buy Assets In ASEAN And Sell Stake In NCB

HONG KONG (Standard&Poor's) May 22, 2015--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings on Bank of China (Hong Kong) Ltd. (BOCHK: A+/Stable/A-1; cnAAA/cnA-1+) are not affected by the bank's plan to buy assets in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from parent Bank of China Ltd. (BOC), and sell its shares in Nanyang Commercial Bank Ltd. (NCB). We expect BOCHK to continue to benefit from a "high likelihood" of support from the Chinese government. Also, we expect the impact of the transactions on the bank's 'a-' stand-alone credit profile to be very insignificant in the near term, if both transactions occur in quick succession. BOCHK's transaction with the parent will increase its exposure to ASEAN. At

...HONG KONG (Standard & Poor's) May 22, 2015--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings on Bank of China (Hong Kong) Ltd. (BOCHK: A+/Stable/A-1; cnAAA/cnA-1+) are not affected by the bank's plan to buy assets in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from parent Bank of China Ltd. (BOC), and sell its shares in Nanyang Commercial Bank Ltd. (NCB). We expect BOCHK to continue to benefit from a "high likelihood" of support from the Chinese government. Also, we expect the impact of the transactions on the bank's 'a-' stand-alone credit profile to be very insignificant in the near term, if both transactions occur in quick succession. BOCHK's transaction with the parent will increase its exposure to ASEAN. At the same time, BOCHK's sale of NCB would significantly reduce its customer loan exposure in China, given NCB's significant exposure there. In our view, exposures in both China and the ASEAN countries, other than Singapore, face higher economic risk than those in...

Bulletin