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The new board has 17 members, and Citigroup, China Life and State Power Grip, the bank's three major shareholders, each with 20 per cent stakes, nominated directors to the board.

A newly elected board member, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the new investors would play an active role in reforming the operations and management of the bank.

The bank began to seek new investors in 2004, with the Citigroup-led consortium securing the stake for 24.27 billion yuan (US$2.99 billion).

Other key shareholders include China CITIC Trust & Investment Co, which holds 12.85 per cent, China Puhua Investment, which has 8 per cent, and IBM with 4.47 per cent.

According to the agreement, Citigroup will help Guangdong Development Bank in a number of fields, including risk management, financial control, information technology application, financial innovation and human resource management.

With the new investments, Guangdong Development Bank's net assets will reach 12.5 billion yuan (US$1.54 billion), with its bad loan ratio being kept under 5 per cent, and its bad assets ratio remaining below 4 per cent.

Official statistics indicate that the bank realized a pre-tax profit of 1.68 billion yuan (US$207.15 million) in the first half of this year, double that in the same period in 2005.

Founded in 1988, the bank has grown into a national lender with 27 branches and 502 outlets nationwide. It has assets of US$47.9 billion with 12 million consumer customers, 9 million cardholders and 16,000 small- and medium-sized enterprise clients.

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