Bank of America to sell part of CCB stake

Bank of America Corp is selling about half its stake of China Construction Bank to a group of investors for $8.3 billion in cash, the bank said on Monday. Bank of America's agreement to sell 13.1 billion shares of CCB will reduce its holdings to about 5 percent of the Chinese lender's outstanding shares.
The sale is latest in a by the bank to shed assets and boost its capital in advance of new financial industry rules that take effect over the next decade. Bank of America paid $3 billion for a 9.9 percent stake in CCB, the world's No 2 bank by market value, before the Chinese lender's IPO in 2005 The deal will boost Bank of America's tier 1 capital levels by about $3.5 billion. After the deal was announced, Bank of America shares were up 3.6 percent at $8.04.