Goldman divests 2.75bln ICBC shares for HK$15.9bln

Sale to boost Goldman’s returns from 37% of its initial investment to about $4bln.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is seeking to reap HK$15.9 billion ($2.05 billion) from selling shares in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. in a transaction that would give it a fourfold return on its 2006 investment.

Goldman Sachs is offering 2.75 billion shares at HK$5.70 to HK$5.79 apiece, according to a term sheet for the proposed sale. The offer represents a discount of as much as 4.5 percent from the closing price in Hong Kong for the world’s largest lender by market value.

The sale follows Goldman Sachs’s disposal of an almost $2 billion stake in ICBC in June 2009, when it offloaded the shares it was free to divest as it repaid bailout funds to the U.S. government. The New York-based lender will hold a stake worth about $8 billion in Beijing-based ICBC following the latest transaction, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Shares of ICBC have slumped 7.3 percent in Hong Kong trading this year, compared with a 2.3 percent gain in the benchmark Hang Seng Index. Edward Naylor, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for Goldman Sachs, declined to comment.

View the full story in Bloomberg.