The top bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, is in talks to buy PT Bank Halim Indonesia.

For ICBC, which is preparing to raise up to a record 21 billion U.S. dollars in a simultaneous Hong Kong-Shanghai listing next month, the deal will mark its first foreign acquisition as mainland's banks begin to look at outward expansion.

Bank Halim, a small bank based in the country's second-largest city of Surabaya, has total assets of 490 billion rupiah (53.20 million dollars).

The talk was done when the (central bank) governor was in Singapore.

The central bank was just facilitating," he said, when asked about the value of the deal.

ICBC operates a small franchise through its ICBC (Asia) in Hong Kong. ICBC (Asia) acquired the Hong Kong banking operations of Belgian-Dutch financial services group Fortis for 277 million dollarsin 2003.

This would be the parent company's first overseas acquisition, and indicates that the bank has plans to use its IPO proceeds for broad expansion.

Source:佚名