Former US president lobbies China over Citigroup bid: report

Former US president George Bush has personally lobbied the Chinese government to back a Citigroup-led consortium's bid to buy into Guangdong Development Bank (廣東發展銀行), state press reported yesterday.

"On my personal behalf, I vigorously ask the Chinese government to support the US companies' efforts to buy into Guangdong Development Bank," Bush said in a letter to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"I sincerely believe that the deal would be conducive to the overall development of the Sino-US relationship," the official 21st Century Business Herald quoted the letter as saying.

The consortium led by US banking giant Citigroup has reportedly bid 24.1 billion yuan (US$3 billion) for an 85 percent stake in Guangdong Development Bank.

The Carlyle Group, a US venture capital firm with close links to Washington, is also part of the consortium.

The Citigroup consortium's main rival is a French-led consortium headed by Societe Generale, which has reportedly offered 23.5 billion yuan for more than 80 percent of the troubled southern Chinese bank.

Societe Generale appears to have its own powerful supporters, with its head of international retail banking, Jean-Louis Mattei, saying last month that an unnamed French government-owned agency intended to become a minor shareholder.

Bush's letter was sent to the foreign affairs ministry at the end of January and passed on to the China Banking Regulatory Commission, a government agency with an important say in the deal.

It appeared to back speculation that state-to-state relations, as well as the merits of the individual bidders, could prove important in determining the winner.

Diplomacy and business strongly overlap in China, where the state owns most of the country's assets, including the nation's banks.