SHANGHAI Pudong Development Bank, the partner of Citigroup Inc, plans to list shares in Hong Kong, the lender said yesterday.

"We are still in discussions, and there's no timetable (for the Hong Kong listing)," Zhang Yaolin, vice president of the Shanghai-listed bank, said at a conference in Beijing.

Citigroup will raise its stake in Shanghai-based Pudong Bank to 19.9 percent, he said, without elaborating.

The bank plans a HK$10 billion (US$1.3 billion) share sale in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post reported yesterday, citing unidentified sources.

The lender will proceed with an additional sale of 700 million yuan-denominated shares this month. The offering would raise as much as 10.1 billion yuan (US$1.27 billion) based on the bank's ending price of 14.37 yuan yesterday.

Its yuan-denominated A shares have gained 46 percent this year, compared with 62 percent growth in the Shanghai Composite Index.

Pudong Bank said in February 2004 that it planned to sell 700 million additional A shares after scrapping plans to sell bonds convertible into stock.

The increase in Citigroup's stake is expected to follow the share sale. New York-based Citigroup, which owns 4.2 percent of Pudong Bank, is awaiting government approval for the transaction.

The Shanghai bank's capital adequacy ratio stood at 8.01 percent at the end of June, just above the eight percent regulatory requirement.

Editor: Yan