On January 4, Thomson Reuters released the 2016 global and regional M&A financial adviser list. The list suggests that the number of M&As led by ICBC tops in the Asia-Pacific region for three consecutive years. In addition, ICBC is ranked first in China in overseas M&A advisory business for two consecutive years, and becomes one of the top 20 global M&A transaction financial advisers by amount as the only China-based institution.

In recent years, ICBC has endeavored to expand M&A business by leveraging its  Group-wide strength and professional investment banking team, and actively used financial instruments to boost structural optimization, transformation, upgrading and cross-border investment of the real economy enterprises. In 2016, ICBC completed 113 domestic and foreign M&A transactions, involving more than USD 150 billion, up 168% over the previous year.

In terms of domestic mergers and acquisitions, ICBC has implemented policies such as de-capacity, de-stocking and de-leverage, and explored business in key areas including private placement and allotment of shares allotment for listed companies, industrial integration, equity incentive, state-owned enterprise restructuring, existing PPP asset acquisition, and M&A fund. ICBC has combined M&A consultancy, M&A loans, agency-based M&A investment, joint M&A investment and M&A debt to provide companies with one-stop, integrated investment banking M&A services featuring “financing + intelligence” and “consultancy + financing” . In 2016, ICBC completed a number of major M&A projects including the Sunac China-Raycom real estate M&A project (a top ten real estate M&A project in China in 2016 worth over RMB 10 billion), Tianbao Group's capital increase in Bohai Securities (a typical acquisition of non-controlling interest through capital increase), YMCI's acquisition of Chengdu New International Center (a trans-provincial acquisition of provincial state-owned enterprise), restructured Zijin Mining’s acquisition of Heilongjiang Mining (an over-capacity industry), and VGRASS’ acquisition of Teenie Weenie (M&A fund characterized by market-based exit).

In cross-border M&A, ICBC has served the strategies of the “Belt and Road”, “Made in China 2025” and “Go Global” by completing typical transactions such as Joyson Electronics’ acquisition of KSS (the world's fourth largest automotive safety system manufacturer), Biostime’s acquisition of Swisse (the number one healthcare brand in Australia), and Midea’s offer for acquisition of KUKA Robotics (a German company), demonstrating the Bank’s strong competitiveness in cross-border M&A.