It is not an insignificant source of embarrassment to Nanjing that, as the capital of Jiangsu province, the city’s GDP lags behind that of Suzhou and even former regional underdog Wuxi.
For decades, Wuxi has been known as a city reliant on labour-intensive manufacturing industries with the resulting heavy pollution. More recently, strides have been taken to shift the economy towards cleaner industries including new energy, bio-technology, pharmaceuticals and financial services.
Foreign players are rushing to get into the lucrative underwriting business in China, which became the world’s top IPO market last year after companies raised a record US$70 billion in proceeds. The newly launched Huaying Securities, a joint venture brokerage between the Royal Bank of Scotland and its local partner, Wuxi based Guolian Securities, has been authorised to underwrite stocks and bonds issued on the mainland.
In China, RBS transferred its retail banking business to Singapore’s DBS Group last year, but has preserved its wholesale and corporate banking businesses including a commercial lender, a trust venture and a futures brokerage venture.
UK newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph, citing sources close to the process, recently reported that the British government may start selling its stake in RBS as early as the first half of 2012, targeted at institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East and Asia.
When asked about when Britain would sell its stake in RBS, the bank’s Asia Pacific Chief Executive John McCormick said, “I suspect it will be in 2012.” He added the move would likely depend on the bank’s share price.
The British government ended up with an 83% stake in RBS after bailing out the bank with billions of pounds worth of taxpayers’ money during the credit crisis.
