Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (ICBC)

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC; SSE: 601398, HKEX: 1398) is the largest bank in the world by assets, with total assets of ¥57.82 trillion and customer deposits of ¥39.75 trillion at September 30, 2026 [R/S]. The Ministry of Finance owns 31.14% [S]. At ¥8.41 (Nov 4 SSE close) the A-shares are 5% below the 52-week high of ¥8.88 and 28% above the low of ¥6.58 [S/D], with a market capitalisation of about ¥3.00 trillion, 0.75x book value of ¥11.24 per share and a 3.8% trailing dividend yield [D/S]. The NPL ratio is 1.29% (1.31% at end-2025) with provision coverage of 211.64% and total capital adequacy of 18.50%; CET1 was 13.21% at June 30 [R]. Analysts' published targets are far below our targets: MarketScreener shows a mean of ¥7.36 (high ¥8.62) from 17 analysts, and Investing.com showed ¥8.67 on August 29 [S]. What is working. Nine-month revenue was ¥667.14 billion (+9.19%) and net profit ¥288.28 billion (+6.03%), of which ¥285.64 billion (+5.83%) is attributable to shareholders; total assets grew 8.13% and deposits 6.54% since December [R]. Revenue growth above profit growth shows that income is recovering faster than credit and operating costs. What is not. Profit growth of about 6% is modest against a ¥100 billion private placement and ¥300 billion of state-bond capital injection that dilute returns on equity, which we estimate at about 9.5% (annualised nine-month profit over book equity) [D/E]. The placement adds about 11.6 billion shares (+3.3%) at an assumed ¥8.60 [E]. Net interest margin and loan totals for the quarter were not found in the sources we could retrieve [n/d]. Valuation. Banks are valued on price to book. Our base target of ¥15 equals 1.18x our estimated book value of ¥12.67 per share in September 2028 (Section 07), which is 13.1x FY2028E earnings of ¥1.14 per share [E/D]. The bull target of ¥22 needs 1.72x book value of ¥12.79; the bear target of ¥5.25 is 0.44x book value of ¥11.87 and sits 20% below the 52-week low [D]. The targets were set by the FIBCOS desk; the book value and multiples are what they imply. Today's 0.75x on our base book value would give only ¥9.48, so about 16% of the base-case gain comes from book value growth and the rest from re-rating [D]. Rating: Buy, high risk. Base upside is +78% (about 34% a year over two years) against (38%) to the bear case, a skew of 2.1:1 [D]. The base target is 74% above the highest published target (¥8.62) and the bull case 155% above it [S/D]. A re-rating to 1.18x book value needs the market to accept a return on equity of about 9.7% at a cost of equity near 8.7%, against roughly 11.9% implied today [D/J]. Treat the targets as scenario outcomes set by the desk, not a forecast the evidence supports, and size the position for a range of ¥5.25 to ¥22.