US authorities blocked Minsheng, the Chinese bank, from acquiring a Californian lender in a deal that could have saved almost $300m of taxpayers’ money and $1.4bn from an industry insurance fund, it has emerged. Minsheng had asked the Federal Reserve for permission to acquire UCB, a San Francisco bank in which it already had a 9.9% stake, but the application was not approved before the struggling US lender was seized two weeks ago by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
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