UBS on track to fully own China securities joint venture

BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) -One of UBS’s joint venture partners in China will sell its entire holding in a securities company, paving the way for the Swiss bank to fully own a sizeable securities brokerage in the world’s second-largest economy.

Beijing State-owned Asset Management (BSAM) plans to auction off a 33% stake in the joint venture, UBS Securities, the China Beijing Equity Exchange website showed on Monday. UBS owns a 67% stake in the firm.

“As indicated earlier, the process for UBS to increase its stake in UBS Securities to 100% is in progress,” a spokesperson for the bank told Reuters on Tuesday when asked if UBS will bid for the stake.

The state asset manager is auctioning its stake at an asking price of 1.5 billion yuan ($207.10 million).

A successful acquisition would hand UBS full ownership in the Beijing-headquartered securities firm, after a series of complicated transactions following the Swiss bank’s merger with Credit Suisse.

UBS in June sold a partial stake in its other securities joint ventures to BSAM, with the Swiss bank looking to consolidate operations in China after inheriting the unit from Credit Suisse.

UBS Securities, founded in 2006, became the first foreign majority-owned securities firm in China in 2018.

($1 = 7.2428 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Ella Cao and Selena Li, Yukun Zhang and Ryan Woo, Editing by Louise Heavens)