Goldman Sachs Goldman’s Mandarin lessons

Goldman Sachs certainly knows a good deal. Like buying a 7% stake in China’s largest bank for only 40% of what it is worth, effectively making a $4bn profit in the process. One can, of course, be sceptical about Chinese bank balance sheets. Have all those bad debts really been taken into account? On that view, even paying 1.2 times book - what Goldman is paying for its $2.6bn stake in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) - is risky. But look at another yardstick: the market. ICBC itsel...