Temasek is single-largest foreign investor in Chinese banks: report

SINGAPORE's Temasek Holdings is the single-largest foreign investor in Chinese banks, data from SNL Financial on Tuesday showed.

The data includes all classes of publicly traded common shares, but excludes investments reported before Jan 1, 2014. The market value of each investor's stake in a company was calculated based on the March 31 closing price.

Temasek emerged top with a combined stake valued at US$18 billion, driven by holdings in three Chinese banks. It has a 6 per cent stake in China Construction Bank Corp, worth US$12 billion as at March 31. It is also invested in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, holding US$5.76 billion of shares.

Collectively, US institutions hold the largest stake in Chinese banks. The 10 US companies that made it to the top-25 list of foreign investors in Chinese banks held a combined US$20.1 billion of shares in Chinese lenders.

The only other Singaporean company on the list is Eastspring Investments (Singapore) Ltd, which had investments totalling US$810 million in four Chinese banks as at March 31. Eastspring Investments is a unit of Prudential.