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Shenzhen Development Bank aims to gain regulatory approval for an investment by a unit of General Electric in the lender sometime this year, its chairman said in comments published Thursday.

The Financial News cited Frank Newman, chairman of Shenzhen Development Bank, as saying the investment by GE's Consumer Finance unit would help improve the bank's core capital adequacy ratio to above 4 percent, qualifying it to issue subordinated debt.

The GE unit said in late October that it would pay US$100 million for a 7.3 percent stake of the mid-sized bank. The deal is still awaiting regulatory approval.

Shenzhen Development Bank, which has the highest bad-debt burden and lowest capital adequacy ratio of the five banks listed on the mainland exchanges, is eager to bring in new capital to improve its asset quality.

U.S. equity fund Newbridge Capital bought a 17.89 percent stake of the bank for a reported 1.24 billion yuan (US$154 million) in 2004.

The paper cited Newman as saying Shenzhen Bank was still trying to reach an agreement with holders of its tradable shares on how to compensate them as part of its share reform.

Domestically listed companies are currently in a process of unloading their nontradable shares and circulating them in the market, in a reform the government hopes will revitalize the country's capital markets and improve firms' performance.

The China Securities Journal reported Thursday that the government aims for all of domestically listed firms to have completed their share structure reform by the end of this year.