Industrial and Commercial Bank of China

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. ICBC; simplified Chinese traditional Chinese:  pinyin: Zhōngguó Gōngshāng Yínháng, more commonly just Gōngháng is a Chinese multinational banking company, and the largest bank in the world by total assets and by market capitalization. It is one of China's 'Big Four' state-owned commercial banks the other three being the Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, and China Construction Bank. It was founded as a limited company on January 1, 1984. As of Mar Generally considered the largest bank in the world by assets; it is the first Chinese bank to achieve such a feat  It ranks number 1 in The Banker's Top 1000 World Banks ranking and number 1 on Forbes Global 2000 list of the world's biggest public companies.
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This article or section may be slanted towards recent events. Please try to keep recent events in historical perspective September 2009
ICBC opened a branch in Luxembourg which became the European headquarters of the bank in 2011. ICBC (Europe) S.A. operates a network covering branches in major European cities, namely Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Milan, Madrid, Barcelona, Warsaw and Lisbon.
The bank's Hong Kong operations are listed under the name ICBC Asia. It has purchased the Hong Kong subsidiary of Fortis Bank and rebranded it under its own name on 10 October 2005.
In the runup to its planned initial public offering, on 28 April 2006, three "strategic investors" injected US$3.7 billion into ICBC :
Goldman Sachs purchased a 5.75% stake for US$2.6 billion, the largest sum Goldman Sachs has ever invested-
Dresdner Bank (a wholly owned subsidiary of Commerzbank) invested US$1 billion.
American Express invested US$200 million.
World's largest IPO at the time

ICBC Bank in Beijing

The ICBC building in Xi'an

The ICBC building in Shanghai

The ICBC building in Tokyo

ICBC Canada

Torre Madero Office, the actual ICBC building in Buenos Aires
ICBC was simultaneously listed on both the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Shanghai Stock Exchange on 27 October 2006. It was the world's largest IPO at that time valued at US$21.9 billion, surpassing the previous record US$18.4 billion IPO by Japan's NTT DoCoMo in 1998. In 2010, AgBank broke ICBC's IPO record when it raised $22.1 billion. China's largest commercial bank was also the first company to debut simultaneously on both the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges.
ICBC raised at least US$14 billion in Hong Kong H-shares and another US$5.1 billion in Shanghai A-shares. Due to heavy subscriptions, the greenshoe (i.e. over-allotment) placements were exercised and ICBC's take rose to US$21.9 billion 17% of ICBC's market value before the IPO, divided in US$16 billion in Hong Kong and US$5.9 billion in Shanghai. Following the global offering, the free float of shares was 22.14% of the market capitalization.

At the end of its first day of trading, the bank's shares closed up almost 15% at HK$3.52 in Hong Kong, compared with the listing price of HK$3.07, which was set at the top of the indicative range due to the strong demand. According to Bloomberg, ICBC's market capitalisation at the end of trade based on its Hong Kong shares was US$156.3 billion, making its equity the world's fifth highest among banks, just behind JPMorgan Chase. Meanwhile, ICBC's Shanghai-listed A-shares recorded more modest gains and ended up 5.1% from the offering price of RMB 3.12......