China Minsheng Banking Corp is delaying its search for a new foreign partner and aims to sell most of a planned share placement to its top 10 existing shareholders, industry sources said yesterday.

The Shanghai-listed lender, China's third largest and the nation's first private bank, is due to hold a shareholders' meeting in Beijing next Tuesday to approve the placement, which is expected to raise around US$1.5 billion.

No foreign investor except Singapore's Temasek Holdings, which currently owns almost 4 per cent of the bank, will have the opportunity to buy new shares in the placement, the banking sources said.

About 10 overseas companies including Belgian-Dutch financial services group Fortis, France's Societe Generale and US private equity firm Carlyle Group have at various times expressed potential interest in a stake in Minsheng.

Minsheng, a medium-sized bank based in Beijing, declined to comment.

The bank originally intended to obtain a new foreign partner this year. Many Chinese banks have been seeking foreign strategic partners to gain capital and expertise in the past few years.

"But things have become more complicated after Minsheng's management reshuffle, and the plan may be delayed until 2007," said an industry insider.

When Minsheng conducts its private placement, Temasek is unlikely to become the biggest single shareholder because major domestic shareholders including Liu Yonghao, one of the country's richest businessmen, are keen to keep the bank under local control, the sources said.

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