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Climate
change to hit UK insurance premiums
London: The Association of British Insurers (ABI)
has said its members are concerned that Hurricane Katrina
was part of a pattern of global climate change in which
incidents of severe weather would become more common,
both at home and abroad.
ABI
research suggests the global bill for property damage
caused by incidents such as Hurricane Katrina could increase
by two-thirds over the next ten years unless immediate
environmental action is taken.
An
ABI spokesman said that the association was not expecting
an immediate premium increase directly as a result of
Katrina, but he said that the wider issue of climate change
is beginning to have a very serious impact on insurers.
Although
none of Britain's large general insurers have direct exposure
to the Katrina disaster, they almost all insure themselves
with the world's largest reinsurers, which will pick up
part of the bill for the damage cause by the hurricane.
These companies are expected to pass on their higher costs
to customers.
In
Britain, the value of weather-related claims reached £6bn
between 1998 and 2003, twice the total in the previous
five years.
Separately, the Lloyd's of London insurance market yesterday
dismissed rumours that it has priced the cost of Hurricane
Katrina to the insurance industry at US$40bn. Lloyd's
has asked its members to give a preliminary estimate of
their liabilities by 12 September.
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China
Construction Bank may launch country's biggest ever IPO
Hong
Kong: China Construction Bank aims to start marketing
what may be the country's largest-ever IPO worth more
than US$5bn early next month, according to media reports
quoting people familiar with the deal.
The
reports suggest that the listing of the country's top
property lender may already be close to its halfway target
thanks to investment pledges by Bank of America and the
Singapore government's Temasek.
Construction
Bank plans to submit its first-half earnings to the Hong
Kong bourse by early next week after making a confidential
filing in June, with an eye to a hearing with the exchange's
listing committee by the end of September, the sources
said.
CCB,
China's third-largest bank, whose offering could top China
Unicom Ltd.'s US$5.25bn listing in 2000 as China's largest
ever, faces a potentially crowded IPO market, with billions
of dollars in competing deals expected over the next several
months.
Among them is the Hong Kong government's planned US$3bn
float of the Link REIT, the world's largest property trust.
With
listings from Dongfeng Motor and Shanghai Automotive also
in the works, Hong Kong IPOs could raise over US$10bn
between now and the end of the year. So far this year,
some 20 companies have raised US$8.4 billion in Hong Kong
listings.
CCB,
which is expected to be followed to the market by Bank
of China in 2006, is attracting attention not just for
its size but because it will be a test of how well investors
believe China has managed to clean up the its long-troubled
financial sector.
While
China's banking sector is ravaged by bad loans and shoddy
lending practices, there has been intense interest among
foreign investors as China is seen as one of the last
frontiers for growth and boasts US$1.5 trillion in personal
savings.
Founded
in 1954 to finance big construction projects, CCB received
a $22.5 billion capital injection from Beijing in 2004.
It has been the most aggressive Big Four lender in ridding
itself of bad debt, cutting its non-performing loan ratio
to 3.8 percent by the end of June from 19.35 percent three
years ago.
Its
return on asset ratio nearly doubled to 1.3 percent, the
highest among the Big Four, as net profit jumped 116 percent
to 48.4 billion yuan (US$5.98bn) in 2004, mainly due to
a decrease in tax payment. Its operating profit after
bad debt charges increased 17.5 percent last year.
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