Standard Bank Seen Writing Off Metal Held in China Probe

Standard Bank Group Ltd., Africa’s biggest lender by assets, may make further writedowns of about $80 million on the value of aluminum stockpiles entangled in a Chinese fraud investigation, two fund managers said.

Standard Bank, which isn’t accused of any wrongdoing, started legal proceedings in July after $167 million of aluminum it claimed ownership of was placed under lockdown by authorities probing irregularities at warehouses in Shandong Province. The aluminum stockpiles held in bonded facilities, mostly at the Qingdao port, were allegedly pledged to banks as collateral for loans multiple times. The Johannesburg-based lender has already written down the value of the metal by about half and said last month that any recovery was highly uncertain.