Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd has "insufficient" assets overseas and seeks more investments abroad, President Yang Kaisheng said, even as he denied the lender plans to buy a stake in Standard Chartered Plc.

"ICBC will pursue a combined strategy of acquisitions and new projects in expanding overseas," Yang said at a finance conference in Beijing on Saturday. "Overseas diversification is an important way for Chinese banks to spread risks against cyclical economic downturns."

Having raised US$22 billion in the world's largest share sale a year ago, ICBC, the world's biggest bank by market value, is expanding more aggressively than peers such as Bank of China Ltd. ICBC's 36.7 billion rand (US$5.4 billion) purchase of a 20-percent stake in South Africa's Standard Bank Group Ltd is the biggest overseas investment by a Chinese company.

"Overseas expansion is likely to continue as Chinese banks are seeking to build up their global presence," Bill Stacey, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Credit Suisse, told Bloomberg News yesterday, citing ICBC's forays in Indonesia and Macau. Yang joined China Construction Bank Corp Deputy President Luo Zhefu in denying a newspaper report that their banks planned to acquire a stake in Standard Chartered Plc from Temasek Holdings Pte, the Singaporean government's investment company.

"We have no plans to buy a stake in Standard Chartered," Luo said, while Yang said the report was "just a rumor."

The Financial Times reported that China's three biggest banks - ICBC, Construction Bank and Bank of China - had approached Temasek to buy a 17-percent stake.