On 30 June 2022, the transfer of a 10% shareholding (593,600,000 shares) of Bank of Hangzhou Co., Ltd. (“HZB”) held by Commonwealth Bank of Australia (“CBA”) to Hangzhou Urban Construction & Investment Group Co., Ltd. and Hangzhou Communications Investment Group Co., Ltd. occurred. The total consideration paid to CBA for this transaction was CNY 8,274,784,000 yuan.
CBA is one of the leading comprehensive financial services institutions in Australia and is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. Its primary operations are in Australia and New Zealand. CBA has made strategic investments in HZB and Qilu Bank Co., Ltd, with both banks now listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
KWM, acting as the sole Australian and PRC legal advisor to CBA, contributed joint efforts from the team based across KWM Sydney office, Shenzhen office and Beijing office, and was deeply involved in the design of the transaction plan, the global sale process, drafting transaction documents, transaction negotiation, communication with regulatory authorities, approval of the banking and insurance regulatory authority, review by the Shanghai Stock Exchange, registration of the share transfer, registration of foreign exchange and other related matters for the transaction.
Jonathan Grant and Zhihui JIANG are the lead partners of this project. Team members include Tom Harrison, Juncheng LIU, Ying ZHANG, Piero Craney, Tianyue HAO, Diqing WANG, Lirao FENG and Yue GE.
