BEIJING, Dec. 26 -- A group led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. received approval from the Chinese Government to buy a US$3.7 billion stake in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country's biggest lender canada goose down jackets, people familiar with the matter said.   The 10 percent holding will be split between a Goldman investment fund, Allianz AG and American Express Co. mbt auslaufmodelle, said the sources, who declined to be identified before an agreement is signed. The State Council, China's Cabinet, also endorsed a 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) investment by the nation's social security fund, they said. "The decision is a bit rushed in my opinion, but it's certainly good news for Goldman," said Gu Yunfei, who manages about US$24 million at Millennium Ark Investment Co. in Beijing. The backing from the State Council may make it easier for the Beijing-based lender to move ahead with a planned US$10 billion initial public offering (IPO) next year. China Construction Bank Corp., the country's No. 3 bank, raised about US$8 billion in October in the world's biggest IPO in four years. Edward Naylor, a Hong Kong-based spokesman at Goldman moncler jackets sale, and Xie Taifeng, a spokesman for Industrial bank, declined to comment. Faith Thoms cheap moncler, a Singapore-based spokeswoman for Allianz, Europe's largest insurer, and American Express spokeswoman Catherine Lai declined to comment. The investment group is led by GS Capital Partners V fund, which manages money for clients and employees of the New York-based securities firm. The sale price is equivalent to about 1.2 times the bank's book value canada goose down, based on paid-in capital of 248 billion yuan as of June 30, the people said. Bank of America Corp. paid 1.15 times book value to invest US$2.5 billion in China Construction Bank mbt schuhe preisvergleich, China's third-largest lender in August. The bank's shares are trading at more than two times book value. The Goldman fund may agree to increase its stake in Industrial bank during the IPO, which is planned for the first half of 2006, the people said. The board of Industrial bank and its shareholders need to endorse the plan before signing a final agreement with the group, they said. Industrial bank received a US$15 billion bailout from the government in April, helping reduce its bad-loan ratio to 4.75 percent as of Oct. 31 from 19.1 percent at the end of last year. The State-owned lender, which controls about 20 percent of the country's banking assets, also shed 450 billion yuan of soured loans. Industrial bank, which has more than 100 million customers at 21,223 outlets nationwide, last month reported unaudited operating profit of 22.8 billion yuan for the third quarter of 2005, up 19 percent from the same period a year earlier. In another development, Kuwait's Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah said Thursday in Beijing that the Kuwait Investment Office, a Kuwait state investment agency, is looking to buy a strategic stake in ICBC. (Source: Shenzhen Daily/Agencies)

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