Royal Bank of Construction, China Commerz Bank. Both have a certain ring to them. The question is: which European bank will China Construction Bank, the second-biggest Chinese lender by assets, choose as its goal?
In an interview yesterday, CCB’s chairman Wang Hongzhang told the Financial Times that his bank would consider spending as much as Rmb100bn ($15.8bn) on a bank deal in Europe.
That would be enough to buy a wide range of bank assets across Europe, including all of Germany’s Commerzbank, or more than half of Royal Bank of Scotlandin the UK – two of the groups that investment bankers believe could make the best targets. So what’s the hold-up?