On December 9, ICBC and Shandong Gold Group (SGG) signed a Debt-for-equity Swap Cooperation Framework Agreement. Under the agreement, ICBC will work with SGG to develop a RMB 10 billion worth debt-for-equity swap business to reduce the leverage of SGG and provide it with comprehensive, high-quality financial services to optimize its financial structure, enhance its market image, and increase its growth momentum.

According to an official with ICBC, since the State Council promulgated the Opinions on Actively and Prudently Reducing the Leverage of Enterprises and the Guidelines on Market-oriented Bank Debt-for-equity Swap, ICBC has strictly followed the "market-based, law-compliant" requirements to implement related work. As an industry leader with the second largest gold reserves and output in China, SGG is expected to have its leverage reduced by around 10% through cooperation with ICBC, which can effectively enhance SGG’s capital strength, promote diversification of ownership structure, and improve its governance mechanism.

ICBC will earnestly enforce relevant national policies and use the debt-for-equity approach to escalate service models and integrated financial service capabilities of commercial banks, make better use of the multi-layered capital market to help enterprises optimize their capital structure, drive the supply-side structural reform, and better serve the development of real economy.