Nod to revamp Everbright in latest shake-up

The State Council has approved a major restructuring of China Everbright Group that will turn the state-owned giant into a joint-stock company, Everbright Bank said yesterday in a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The move comes just days after the mainland's fifth-largest bank, Bank of Communications, announced in a filing that it was researching "mixed ownership" reform.

The government would allow Everbright Group to restructure from a "wholly state-owned enterprise", in which the Ministry of Finance and state-controlled Central Huijin Investment hold majority stakes, to a joint stock company, according to the filing.

The group had 2.6 trillion yuan (HK$3.3 trillion) in assets as of last year, according to its website.

"This is the direction that China is moving," Xiao Geng, a vice-president of the Global Fung Institute, told the South China Morning Post, adding that the pace at which reform was coming to the mainland's state sector was surprising.

Recently announced reforms at several state-owned firms demonstrated that Beijing was serious about following up on pledges made at a Communist Party summit held in November last year, Xiao said.

The meeting produced a 60-point list for sweeping reforms, including bringing mixed ownership to the state sector.