The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) share price is down 0.26% in early trade.
CommBank closed yesterday at $99.74 and is currently trading at $99.48.
That puts the CBA share price up 6.5% since the closing bell on 28 February, handily outperforming the 1.1% gains posted by the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) over that same period.
So, what's driving the big bank's outperformance?
$1.8 billion divestment kickstarts the month
The biggest news likely impacting the CBA share price came on the first of the month.
That's when CommBank announced it had entered into a binding sale agreement to divest almost half its 10% shareholding in the Chinese Bank of Hangzhou Co Ltd.
CBA reported the deal to be worth some $1.8 million. The bank will retain approximately a 5.6% stake in the Bank of Hangzhou.
Atop the post-sale profit benefits, CommBank also said the sale should boost its capital buffer ratio (CET1) by 0.35% once the deal is finalised.
"The partial sale of our shareholding is consistent with our strategy to focus on our core banking business in Australia and New Zealand," CBA CEO Matt Comyn said about the divestment.
The CBA share price also received some positive coverage in the first week of March from Bell Potter.
The broker's analysts signalled a buy rating for CommBank with a $108 price target. That's 8.5% higher than the current price.
As my Fool colleague James Mickleboro explained on the day, "The broker's price target is based on a composite valuation of discounted cash flow, dividend yield, return on equity (ROE), and sum-of-the-parts (SOTP) weighted equally."
Bell Potter also lifted its price target because of the bank's estimated $5.53 billion in surplus capital.
CBA share price snapshot
Over the past year, CBA shares have gained 15%, compared to a gain of 6% posted by the ASX 200.
Year-to-date the CBA share price is down 2.7%.
