Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank(“GRCB”) receives BAA2 rating from Moody’s with AMTD as its exclusive rating advisor, which is the highest credit rating in history among all regional Chinese banks

On April 17th, AMTD helped Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank successfully secure the long-term / short-term deposit ratings of Baa2 Stable / P-2 Stable assigned by Moody’s as exclusive rating advisor. This is the highest international credit rating received by China regional banks, surpassing the ratings of certain national joint-stock commercial banks. Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank also became the first Hong Kong listed regional bank to receive the international investment grade credit rating, which fully demonstrated the leading position of Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank in China’s regional banks and further strengthened the influence of Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank on the international capital market.

Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank is China's fourth-largest rural commercial bank (in terms of Tier 1 capital) and the largest rural commercial bank in Guangdong Province. Rooted in Guangzhou, it radiates across the country, with significant geographical advantages and strong development strength. The history of Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank can be traced back to the first rural credit cooperative in Guangzhou established in 1952. It was restructured and initiated in 2009 and has a history of over 66 years. According to the 2016 “Global Bank Top 1000” ranking published by “The Banker” of the UK, in terms of Tier 1 capital, Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank ranked 203th among global commercial banks and 30th among Chinese commercial banks. At the same time, Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank is also ranked 89th in the list of Asian Banker magazine's “2016 Top 500 Asian Banks”, ranking No. 2 among the selected banking institutions in Guangdong.

Moody's pointed out in its public press release that Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank has established a rich network coverage in the Guangdong region, with a solid and stable deposit base, excellent asset quality, strong liquidity support, healthy financial status and ideal ownership structure, which fully support Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank to obtain "Baa2" long-term deposit rating.

AMTD has established a close and long-term cooperative relationship with Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank. In June 2017, AMTD was appointed as the exclusive financial advisor, joint global coordinator, joint book runner and joint lead manager of Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank's H-share IPO, assisting Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank successfully landed in the international capital market with an issuance scale of more than RMB 1 billion, which became one of the largest bank shares in Hong Kong's capital market IPO in 2017. In this transaction, AMTD served as an exclusive rating advisor, prepared for rating work, coordinated the needs of rating agencies, helped the bank successfully complete rating, and achieved great success.

As an exclusive rating advisor of Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank, AMTD prepared targeted rating strategy, detailed implementation schedule, and a list of information requirements for rating agencies. AMTD also provided professional advice on the overall planning of the project and simultaneously assisted the bank to prepare detailed presentation materials and financial models, coordinated the overall rating presentations, actively encouraged the communication among parties and helped the rating agencies to achieve comprehensive understanding of the banks. In addition, AMTD team also actively coordinated interview meetings with relevant government departments to assist the rating agencies in conducting full due diligence on the banks and their related parties.

AMTD has achieved remarkable services to Chinese banks. Prior to this, AMTD assisted local banks including Bank of Qingdao, Bank of Tianjin, Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank, Zhongyuan Bank, Bank of Zhengzhou, Bank of Jinzhou and other regional banks to successfully complete Hong Kong IPO and preferred share issuance, and assisted China Minsheng Bank Corp., Ltd., Hong Kong Branch, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Hong Kong Branch and other national joint-equity banks in completing the issuance of U.S. dollar bonds. AMTD has rich experience in project implementation and professional service capabilities, forming a unique "regional bank +" ecosystem.