By P.R. Venkat
State-owned China Huarong Asset Management has agreed to buy a minority stake in another state-run conglomerate, Citic Ltd., for 13.63 billion Hong Kong dollars (US$1.75 billion).
Huarong will acquire a 5.01% stake from Citic Polaris, a wholly owned unit of Citic Ltd., the state-owned asset management company said late Wednesday.
The company will fund the stake purchase with internal resources.
Hong Kong-listed Citic Ltd. is engaged in financial services, advanced intelligent manufacturing, advanced materials, new consumption, and new-type urbanization.
Huarong is majority-owned by China’s Ministry of Finance and is the largest of the country’s managers of nonperforming loans and other bad debt.
Citic Group owns a 26.46% stake in Huarong.
Huarong is expected to have a director on Citic Ltd.’s board after the acquisition.
Write to P.R. Venkat at venkat.pr@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications
This article was corrected at 0201 GMT to reflect the proper name of Citic Ltd. in the last paragraph. The original article incorrectly misspelled it.
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