Bank of China Ltd. said Friday it will start a rights issue in Shanghai and Hong Kong to raise around 60 billion Chinese yuan ($8.96 billion). Bank of China, China's fourth-largest lender, said it plans to sell 17.8 billion A shares at 2.36 Chinese yuan each in Shanghai from Nov. 3 to Nov. 9. The lender also plans to sell 7.6 billion H shares in Hong Kong at 2.74 Hong Kong dollars each.
The lender said its A shares will be suspended from trading from Nov. 3 to Nov. 10.
China raised the minimum capital adequacy ratio of its big banks to at least 11.5% last year, from 8% in earlier years, because of the global financial crisis and the explosion in bank lending. Financial institutions in China issued a record 9.6 trillion Chinese yuan worth of local-currency loans last year. The central bank has targeted new yuan lending of 7.5 trillion Chinese yuan this year.