On Leap Year day China National Chemical Corporation put out a brief announcement to say HSBC and China Citic Bank would lead a three-month $15bn bridge loan to finance its $43bn purchase of Swiss-based Syngenta (as well as another $5bn to refinance the debt of its target). China Citic Bank is one of the smaller of the mainland’s listed state owned banks, and was not the obvious candidate for such a huge, high-profile transaction.
Citic people have quietly let it be known that one of its top executives is close to Ren Jianxin, the chairman of ChemChina. The two met over dinner in Beijing in January to agree to underwrite the financing. No matter. The markets had their own interpretation of the transaction.
Citic Group had been subject to scrutiny from regulators and the disciplinary committee for possible violations by two of the group’s principal arms, its bank and its securities firm. The fact that Citic is leading the fundraising shows either that the investigation is over, with no negative fallout, or that the group can repent for its possible alleged transgressions by doing a high-risk deal for which it may or may not be lucratively paid.