Private firms top bank-fee generators in China

Hong Kong

PRIVATE firms have overtaken state-owned companies this year for the first time as the biggest drivers of investment banking revenues in China - a sign of how Beijing's reforms are transforming private capital's role in the world's second-largest economy.

Nimble and boasting efficient management, these private firms are taking advantage of the Internet industry boom and business expansion ambitions to take a bigger share of the deal activity compared with state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

So far this year, about 78 per cent of the total value of Chinese stock-market listings, rights issues and other deals has come from the private sector, Dealogic data shows.

This is up from last year, when the private sector accounted for less than half the total value of these deals. Between 2005 and 2010, when China's four largest banks and a slew of large SOEs were listed, private deals mad…