Clifford Chance and Linklaters have scored prime advisory roles in China CITIC Bank Corp’s purchase of a 29.7 percent stake from Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A (BBVA) of Citic International Financial Holdings Ltd (CIFH) for $1.05 billion. 

CIFH is the investment holding arm of the CITIC Group outside mainland China. The deal is expected to make CIFH a wholly owned entity by its parent company, China CITIC Bank, which is China’s seventh-largest lender and already owns the remaining 70.3 percent stake. 

Clifford Chance’s team which advised CNCB on the deal was led by corporate partner Terence Foo, with assistance from senior associates Zhang Hong and Ian Yang and associate Janet Jiang. BBVA, meanwhile, was represented by Linklaters.

As Spain’s second-biggest bank, BBVA has been struggling to lower its exposure to China in recent years, as the bank was hit hard by Spain’s property market collapse, and also because the new international rules make it expensive to hold minority stakes in lenders.