Akbar Poonawala, head of global equity services at Deutsche Bank, said: "We are delighted to be acting as depositary bank on the American depositary receipt (ADR) program and we very much look forward to working with Gemalto and ensuring that the company and its ADR investors receive the highest level of service."

Jacques Tierny, CFO at Gemalto, said: "We are delighted to have appointed Deutsche Bank to manage our ADR program and look forward to working with the global team to develop our ADR program."

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Meanwhile, the Dutch Finance Ministry said the German bank will pay ABN EUR700m for its assets.

ABN will have to sell its bank HBU and several business offices under the EU competition body's requirement for an antitrust clearance of its merger with Fortis Bank Netherlands.

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If successful, Deutsche Bank will directly and indirectly takes a 17.12% stake in Hua Xia Bank, higher than the holdings of the Shanghai-listed bank's current first-largest shareholder Shougang Group.

Deutsche Bank will not become Hua Xia Bank's controlling shareholder and after the deal, Hua Xia Bank will have neither controlling shareholder nor actual controller as usual. The bank's operation guideline, development direction, and governance structure will not change.

Although Shougang Group support the deal under an investor interest agreement signed in October 2005, it will take measures to keep its position. Shougang Group will be likely to buy Hua Xia Bank shares from other state-owned shareholders or lift its holdings via a private placement, noted an analyst.

Source: www.nbd.com.cn (November 20, 2009)

After the deal, the stake Deutsche Bank controls in Hua Xia Bank will reach 14.7 percent, exceeding a 13.98 percent held by Shougang Group and letting the German lender become the biggest shareholder of the Shanghai-traded bank. In addition, Deutsche Bank controls a 2.42 percent stake in Hua Xia Bank via its wholly-owned subsidiary Deutsche Bank Luxemburg SA. So, the stake Deutsche Bank directly and indirectly holds in the Chinese bank totals 17.12 percent.

Deutsche Bank will not become Hua Xia Bank's controlling shareholder and after the deal, Hua Xia Bank will have neither controlling shareholder nor actual controller as usual. Currently, Hua Xia Bank has 15 directors, of which two were nominated by the German bank. The stake a single foreign financial institution holds in a Chinese one is not allowed to exceed 20 percent in line with concerned rules by the China Banking Regulatory Commission. So there is little room for the German bank to buy more into the Chinese one.

Deutsche Bank had 683 million Hua Xia Bank shares before the acquisition, of which 416 million ones will see lockup period expire on May 18, 2011 and the remainder will witness lockup period expire on October 20, 2011. It acquired a 9.9 percent stake in Hua Xia Bank for EUR 200 million in 2005 and signed a contract to buy stake Sal. Oppenheim, the consortium partner of the deal, holds in the Chinese bank at a fixed price within a certain period. On June 8 this year, approximately 1.58 billion restricted Hua Xia Bank shares owned by 25 investors, including Sal. Oppenheim, became tradable.

Deutsche Bank acquired 267 million additional shares of Hua Xia Bank amid recession in Chinese stock market last year. The shares have a three-year lockup period and were priced at CNY 14.62 apiece, up about 90 percent from the latter's market price that time.

Hua Xia Bank had a net profit of CNY 2.64 billion in the first three quarters of this year, with that captured from July to September hitting CNY 980 million.

(USD 1 = CNY 6.83 and USD 1= EUR 0.67)

Source: dycj.ynet.com (November 19, 2009)