...HONG KONG (Standard & Poor's) Dec. 10, 2014--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings on Haitong Securities Co. Ltd. (Haitong: ###/Stable/A-2; cnA/cnA-2) are unaffected by the company's proposed acquisition of Banco Espirito Santo de Investimento S.A. (BESI), a Portuguese investment bank. Our ratings on Haitong's core subsidiary Haitong International Securities Group Ltd. (###/Stable/A-2; cnA/cnA-2) are also not affected. We believe the direct immediate financial impact of the acquisition on Haitong is likely to be insignificant. We suspended our ratings on BESI on Aug. 11, 2014, because of a lack of information, after it was transferred as a going concern to Novo Banco in the third quarter of 2014. We understand BESI is an asset that is not considered problematic by the Portuguese regulators. Given BESI's size, the consideration for the proposed acquisition is unlikely to be material relative to Haitong's equity and balance sheet strength, in our view. The proposed...
