HONG KONG (Standard&Poor's) Sept. 8, 2014--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings on The Bank of East Asia Limited (BEA: A/Stable/A-1; cnAA+/cnA-1) are not affected by the bank's potential new equity issuance to Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC). While we expect the proposed transaction to strengthen BEA's capital base, it is unlikely to materially affect the bank's business strategy. The proposed transaction will increase BEA's risk-adjusted capital ratio to about 8.0% from 7.0%, if SMBC buys the shares at Hong Kong dollar 33.35 per share--the closing market price on Sept. 5, 2014. However, the ratio will remain commensurate with BEA's capital and earnings score, which we assess as "adequate," and under which we forecast the
