The president of Shenzhen Development Bank (SDB) Jeffrey Williams has resigned after a 13-month stint at the Shenzhen-based lender that has been plagued by bad loans and capital shortage.

 

His resignation was effective from February 11, the bank said in a statement to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange yesterday, and no replacement has been selected yet.

 

Williams said he has filed the resignation letter but declined to comment.

 

"The board of directors has embarked on a search for a new president," said the statement, adding that Chairman and CEO Frank Newman will retain his position and all other SDB executives will remain in their roles.

 

Insiders said that Xiao Suining, the president of the Shenzhen Branch of the Bank of Communications, is likely to succeed Williams. Xiao was the chief negotiation representative of the local government in talks with Newbridge Capital about buying SDB's 17.9 percent in May 2004. And the San Francisco-based buyout firm is the first overseas investor to control a Chinese bank.

 

The stock of SDB closed at 6.24 yuan (77 US cents) yesterday, up 0.48 percent.

 

"The resignation of Williams reflects the intensified internal conflict between the new philosophy of the Newbridge Capital and the old scheme in SDB," She Minhua, an analyst with the China Securities, told China Daily. "The way to carry out the reform may be changed after the new president took post, but the overall reshuffle will go on."

 

Since being appointed as president on December 4, 2004, Williams has been trying to fix the US$1.74 billion in non-performing loans (NPLs) and a management structure that allowed regional chiefs to extend credit with little oversight.

 

"Credit authority was very decentralized into individual branches," Newman said last year. "The processes of running a good bank have to be established here."

 

The bank's non-performing loans fell 0.45 percentage points to 10.29 percent by the end of September.

 

That compares with an average of 2.32 percent for the other four locally listed lenders as of June 30, according to the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC).

 

Profit at the bank dropped 21 percent in 2004 as lending fell and it set aside more funds to cover rising bad debt. In the first nine months of last year, profit rose 8 percent to 366 million yuan (US$45.2 million).

 

(China Daily February 15, 2006)