China Minsheng Banking Corp., the country's only private bank, said Monday that its first-half net profit was expected to jump more than 50 percent due to strong growth in its lending business.

"China Minsheng Banking Corp's business saw rapid growth in the first half of 2004 and we forecast that our first-half net profit to rise more than 50 percent from the corresponding period in2003," the Beijing-based lender, which hopes to become the first Chinese mainland bank to float shares overseas, said in a statement posted on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Website.

Minsheng posted a net profit of638.1 million yuan (US$77.07 million)in the first half of 2003, up48.1 percent from a year earlier, and its first-quarter net profit leapt to 459.9 million yuan, up 62 percent compared with the same period of last year. The Shanghai listed lender is scheduled to publish its interim financial results Aug.16.

Minsheng, in which US private equity firm Newbridge Capital is seeking to buy a 4.82 percent stake, plans a Hong Kong initial public offering that is expected to raise up to US$1 billion.

But the long-anticipated share sale has been clouded by an incident involving forgery of a shareholders' resolution committed four years ago. Until the forgery incident, which Minsheng admitted earlier this year, Minsheng's corporate governance standards had been widely regarded as among the best in China's banking sector.

Founded in 1996 as the first Chinese bank with non-States shareholders, Minsheng is the first bank on the Chinese mainland to adopt both local and international accounting standards and it is among only five listed banks.

(Shenzhen Daily July 6, 2004)