China UnionPay denies holding talks for stake sale

Jul. 29, 2009 (China Knowledge) - China UnionPay, the only national credit card organization in the country, has not held any talks over a stake sale, announced Xu Luode, the president of the company, on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Xu also said that CUP does not plan to launch an initial public offering next year, though it may consider going public later on.

The announcement came after a media report that CUP had agreed to sell a combined stake of about 10% in the company to three private equity firms in preparation for next year's planned IPO. The report said the three buyers were CITIC Private Equity, an investment arm of China's top brokerage, CITIC Securities Co Ltd<600030>, V-Stone Investments Ltd, the private equity arm of Shanghai-listed men's fashion maker Youngor Group, and a local investor.

As of the end of June, CUP's network included 1.35 million domestic merchants, 2.11 million POS terminals and 180,000 ATM machines, according to an earlier report from China Knowledge.