China CITIC Bank's assets reached 671.15 billion yuan (US$83.9 billion), up 8.9 percent since the beginning of the year, the Shanghai Securities News reported Friday.

 

The asset increase is good news for the bank as it prepares for an initial public offering, likely by the end of the year in Hong Kong, the newspaper said.

 

The China CITIC Bank, affiliated with the CITIC Group and established in Beijing in 1987, is one of China's 13 national share-holder banks. These banks are smaller than the "big four" State-owned banks, which have either gone public or are planning to do so.

 

Following its listing in Hong Kong, the China CITIC Bank is also planning another share offering on China's mainland market. China hopes its banks will improve corporate governance and business through public listings.

 

By the end of June 2006, China CITIC Bank's non-performing asset ratio stood at 2.51 percent, with outstanding volume of non-performing loans totaling 11.096 billion yuan.

 

The net profit of the China CITIC Bank reached 3.675 billion yuan in the first half of this year, equaling 58 percent of the total profit of 2005.

 

Its capital adequacy ratio reached 9.44 percent by the end of June 2006, relatively high compared with other mainland share-holding banks of similar size. That ratio at the Minsheng Bank and Huaxia Bank was 8.26 percent and 8.61 percent respectively.

 

A higher capital adequacy ratio makes processing applications for public offerings easier, analysts said.

 

(Xinhua News Agency August 4, 2006)