The US bank, which in 2005 was part of a wave of foreign investment into Chinese banks, last week hired UBS to help sell a chunk of Hong Kong-listed shares to reduce its overall holding in CCB to below 17 per cent.
The offer was priced at discount of 15 per cent to CCB's current share price and was quickly covered by US and European institutional investors, said people familiar with the matter.
However, the share sale was pulled hours before it was due to be unveiled on Monday morning on the instructions of Ken Lewis, BofA chairman and chief executive, following a phone call with Guo Shuqing, his CCB counterpart, according to people familiar with the situation.