China Everbright Bank Wednesday announced it had received approval from the China Banking Regulatory Commission to raise 11.5 billion yuan (US$1.68 billion ) from eight domestic corporate investors.

After the share placement, the bank would raise its capital adequacy ratio above 10 percent and its core capital adequacy ratio above 7 percent, said a statement from the bank.

The statement said prospective investors included China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, Shanghai Baosteel Group Corp., China Power Finance, China Reinsurance (Group) Corp., Shenergy Group Co., Aerospace Science and Technology Financing, Shanghai Chengtou Corporation and Guangdong Provincial Expressway Development Co..

The bank and the eight investors would cooperate in fields such as deposits, settlement, lending, cash management and bond issuance.

The company started preparing for the plan early this year to raise capital from domestic investors to cope with adverse effects of the global financial downturn, the statement said.

The statement said it was preparing for its listing in Shanghai after submitting its IPO application in June 2008.

In the first half year, the bank reported 11.73 billion yuan of business revenue, 3.43 billion yuan of net profit and a bad loan ratio of 1.42 percent, said the statement.

(Xinhua News Agency August 27, 2009)