Bank of America Merrill Lynch has launched the $1.5bn sale of its final 1 per cent stake in China Construction Bank, ending an investment that bolstered the US lender during the financial crisis and has brought it almost $15bn in trading profits.
BofA becomes the latest in a string of US banks to exit Asian investments at a time when European lenders show more reluctance to sell their stakes in the region even as economic growth begins to slow and the risk of bad loans rises.
The sale comes days after the lock-up expired on the final chunk of BofA’s shares in CCB, which it bought in 2005 ahead of the Chinese bank’s pioneering listing in Hong Kong.