Neither Beijing nor Citigroup confirmed this information

While the record of the redemption of the Guangdong Development Bank is entered in the last straight line, rumours multiplied yesterday stating that a victory for the US Citigroup over the French Société Générale. Neither Beijing nor Citigroup confirmed this information. For their part, representatives of the French Bank in Hong Kong recalled that the official schedule did not provide a fast approval. Launched in August 2005, the competition for the redemption of the institution based in the richest province of China and has 500 branches in all major cities in the East of the country should indeed be completed end of September. Yesterday, the Government of the province of Guangdong, which still controls the Bank, said that he would designate, this week, his favorite candidate among consortia still in the running. If they will take into account this proposal, the central authorities will determine alone, the winner of this race, principally between Citigroup and Société Générale.

On 31 August, at the request of the authorities, consortia filed details on the composition of their teams and their projects of Guangdong Bank restructuring. Displaying several months a stable mounting and the support of important industrial State, Société Générale, which proposes to buy back 20 of the Bank, leads a consortium composed of giant steel Baosteel (20), the refiner Sinopec (20), Dalian Shide Group (10), Jilin Trust & Investment (10) and the Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec (5). Together, they hope to take control of 85 of the Chinese Bank in exchange for a total check of $ 2. 93 billion.

Not ceased to overhaul its coupling, Citigroup, which is also a share of 20 in Guangdong Bank, would be on his side, vying with the insurer, China Life Insurance (20), China Guodian Corp. (20), the public Group China Energy Conservation Investment and equipment manufacturer of telecommunications Putian now called "China Potevio." To replace the US investment fund Carlyle, Citigroup would now propose to bring another American company which would control.

Intense us lobbying

Handicapped by the instability of its offer, the US Bank still believes in the strength of its brand to the superiority of its financial proposal its consortium promised 3 billion and the intense lobbying conducted openly by the American authorities. Each visit, the representatives of the Bush administration are offended before the cameras of the lack of openness of China's financial sector and suggest that in the middle period of trade tension between Beijing and Washington, they live very badly a defeat of the American giant. Expected next week in China, Henry Paulson, the new US Treasury Secretary defector from Goldman Sachs, who likes to stand as a friend of Beijing, is bound to put all its weight in the balance.

Working more behind the scenes, the authorities European were also mentioned on several occasions, with the Chinese authorities, the benefits of the project mounted by Société Générale and recalled, with statistical strength, that the American financial have already making considerable in the province of Guangdong, where Newbridge control, since 2004, the very present Shenzhen Development Bank. In full debate on the weight of foreign groups in China, the argument could make fly in competition become eminently political.