· May 2005 The State Council approved the program for stock system reform of the ICBC. It decided to use $15 billion of foreign exchange reserves to supplement its capital, raising its core capital adequacy ratio to 6 percent and its total capital adequacy ratio to 8 percent. Before long, the Central Huijin Investment Co. input $15 billion of new capital. Plus the original capital of 124 billion yuan input by the Ministry of Finance, the bank's core capital reached 248 billion yuan.

· May 2005 The ICBC finished the stripping of 246 billion yuan of asset losses.

· June 2005 The People's Bank of China managed a bidding of 459 billion yuan of doubtful loans from the ICBC in Beijing. On June 27, the ICBC signed transfer agreements of doubtful loans with China's four asset management corporations, namely, Great Wall, Cinda, Orient and Huarong.

· October 28, 2005 The ICBC Ltd. was established, marking the completion of the bank's restructuring process.

· January 2006 The bank published its major financial data for 2005.

· January 2006 A syndicate led by Goldman Sachs together with Allianz and American Express purchased $3.78 billion, or 10 percent of its shares.

· February 2006 ICBC's business target for the year was set: Raising its annual profits to 100 billion yuan with 37 percent of costs and its capital adequacy ratio to 10.4 percent, keeping its NPL ratio under 4.2 percent, and ensuring the NPL provisioning coverage ratio exceeds 100 percent.

· March 2006 The bank chose five underwriters for its IPO: Merrill Lynch, a syndicate led by China International Capital Corp. Ltd., Credit Suisse Group, Deutsche Bank and ICEA.

· March 2006 The bank officially launched strategic cooperation with Goldman Sachs in corporate governance, risk management, capital transactions, asset management, corporate and investment banking, NPLs management and personnel training.

· May 2006 The bank finished capital transactions with Goldman Sachs, Allianz and American Express, which purchased 24.185 billion shares valued at $3.8 billion, accounting for 8.89 percent of its total shares. This is the largest single investment from overseas investors to the Chinese financial sector. Moreover, the price of this transaction hit a record high for state-owned banks in introducing overseas strategic investors, 2.22 times the book value.

· June 2006 The bank signed strategic investment and cooperation agreements with the National Council for Social Security Fund for a capital input of 18.03 billion yuan.