Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Jingcheng Tongda & Neal have advised Citigroup in the $3 billion sale of its minority stake in China Guangfa bank (CGB) to China Life Insurance.

A Skadden team led by partners Rajeev Duggal, Jonathan Stone, Stuart Finkelstein, Brian Krause, Erica Schohn, Peter Huang and Chris Betts acted as the U.S. legal counsel to Citigroup.  

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton’s Beijing partners Ling Huang and Denise Shiu advised China Life on the acquisition alongside Haiwen & Partners, which advised the buyer on PRC law. 

The sale comes after CGB’s two failed attempts to go public in recent years, which would have allowed investors including Citigroup to offload their shares in the stock market.

Citigroup bought the stake in 2006 for about $610 million, suggesting that it earned more than $2 billion on its investment since then. China Life, China's biggest insurer, will more than double its stake in CGB after the purchase. 

Apart from buying Citigroup's stake, China Life also acquired IBM Credit’s shares in the bank, increasing its holding in CGB to 43.7 percent. IBM Credit, a unit of International Business Machines Corp, was represented by Cravath Swain & Moore and Jin Mao Partners, which acted as U.S. and PRC counsels, respectively. Jin Mao Partners’ team was led by its managing partner Ben Qi.

The deal will help the Citi free up capital to expand its activities in China, where it has an investment banking joint venture with local brokerage Orient Securities Co.