Developer Vanke scrambles in response to Baoneng share purchase

Shares of Vanke have been halted from trading since Friday afternoon, when the company first announced the plan to issue new shares.

Earlier this month, Anbang Insurance Group raised its stake in Sino-Ocean Land Holdings, and bought a 5% stake in China Vanke Co., the country’s largest property developer.

Wang needs the SASAC’s approval if he hopes to get CRC to raise its stake again, Huang Jianzhong, a finance professor at Shanghai Normal University, told the Global Times on Monday, because the agency supervises CRC. “China Resources does not have rights to vote so that the resolution will not be passed”, said Hong.

Combined, the two companies own 30.52 per cent of shares in Vanke. The firm said previously that the investigation its chairman had been assisting was personal and not related to Fosun. An e-mail sent to Anbang’s Beijing-based press office wasn’t immediately answered.

As of yesterday, foreign funds now own 25 percent of China Vanke’s H shares with JPMorgan taking up the largest slice at 14.58 percent.

Foresea Life, which is 51% owned by Jushenghua, said Monday in a statement that its purchase of Vanke’s shares was because of a call from China’s insurance regulator to prop up domestic stock markets in July when share prices plummeted.

SHANGHAI- China Vanke Co.is aiming to put an end to a rare, unsolicited takeover effort by a Chinese rival to end months of speculation over the future of the world’s largest home-builder by sales. While the sale is probably meant to dilute Baoneng’s holding, it may not be enough to prevent Baoneng from keeping its position as biggest shareholder, according to Deng Wenjie, founder of Guangzhou Quantaim Investment Management Co. The two continued to build up their stakes in the following months.

Vanke said in the letter that they had communicated with Baoneng, but ” we had no confidence to convince them not to change Vanke’s culture and operating style”.

But Wang has said that he didn’t welcome the idea of Baoneng being Vanke’s largest shareholder because the company “lacks credibility” and its ownership will have a negative impact on Vanke, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Friday. A “poison pill” is created to make a proposed acquisition more expensive for a potential acquirer. Anbang has communicated in detail with Vanke on the increases in its shareholding, and has emphasized its role as a financial investor only, according to the report.

Meanwhile, China’s property market is also looking better. In November, it agreed to buy Fidelity & Guaranty Life in the U.S.