The “IB Sesame Blooming” Program Assisting Private Equity Financing of SMEs

On August 25, Industrial Bank (IB) held the themed promotional meeting of “‘IB Sesame Blooming' Program Assisting Private Equity Financing of SMEs” in Wuhan, announcing that the bank would, through the “IB Sesame Blooming” SME IPO Program, support a group of SMEs with good growth performance and a large potential to accelerate their IPO progress by introducing private placement or venture funds.

Private equity financing provides another financing channel and approach for enterprises in addition to bank financing and capital market financing, and it may provide enterprises with stable medium and long-term source of funds, help them to improve their capital stock structure, lower financial costs, enhance management efficiency, and realize stable and orderly development, and bring them value-added services with high added value. Introducing a powerful private placement or venture fund can not only help an enterprise to alleviate financing problems, but can also help to enhance its reputation, credibility and internal value.

IB expressed that Wuhan is the largest industrial and commercial city in the central China region and the economic and financial center for the middle reaches of Yangtze River, boasting many SME customers with positive development prospect and IPO potential. Hence, the bank, depending on its integrating resources strength, will provide comprehensive and integrated financial services to local SMEs by assembling and combining various external resources, such as private placement and venture capital agencies, brokerages, and intermediaries such as accounting firms and law firms, and its internal resources and advantages in diversified businesses through the “IB Sesame Blooming” SME IPO Program. In this way, it will help outstanding SMEs to expand financing channels, improve corporate governance structure, accelerate development, and launch a successful IPO, so as to assist Wuhan City's economy to develop soundly and rapidly.

IB innovatively released the “IB Sesame Blooming” SME IPO Program in June 2010 to provide customized financial service schemes mirroring the IPO of SMEs at different stages of their growth; private equity financing is one of the important service contents. In order to implement the program smoothly, IB has established a sound business partnership with many famous brokerages, private placement agencies, intermediaries (accounting firms, law firms and assessment institutions), guarantee institutions and re-guarantee institutions, and various other financial institutions as well as relevant domestic and overseas government agencies. By the end of July 2011, among the over 2,000 customers to have joined the “IB Sesame Blooming” Program, there are 67 in the IPO guidance stage, 11 which have passed the IPO guidance, 26 already reported to the CSRC, 2 waiting for IPO after passing the examination of CSRC, 32 listed on the SME board or GEM board, 56 successfully introduced to private placement, 1 which has achieved refinancing after a successful IPO, and 28 already registered successfully or issuing bonds.