Britain's BP says stake buyer is China's forex administration: report

EIJING (AFP) — British energy giant BP has confirmed that the buyer of just under one percent of its shares is a Hong Kong branch of China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange, state media said Wednesday.

A BP spokesperson in charge of global investor relations said the buyer was SAFE Investment Company Limited, formed in 1997 with a registered capital of 100 million Hong Kong dollars (13 million dollars), the Caijing magazine said.

The spokesperson did not disclose any financial details of the deal.

But it could be worth more than two billion dollars based on BP's current market capitalisation of 104 billion pounds (204 billion dollars).

A BP spokesman told AFP on Tuesday that the company was "aware that a Chinese entity has built up a stake...