The consortium headed by US Citigroup last week entered into agreement with Guangdong Development Bank to hold controlling shares in the latter. Under the agreement, the Citi consortium will pay USD3.1 billion in total to purchase 85.6% of GDB shares. France’s Soécité Général SA dropped out of the bid earlier. Currently GDB has 27 direct subsidiaries and 502 outlets in the country. Total assets of GDB reach USD47.09 billion. GDB has 12 million retail customers, 9 million cardholders, 16000 medium and small enterprise customers and over 12000 employees. The Citigroup hopes this acquisition will bring about great operating leeway for its business in China, so as to improve its presence in the Chinese financial market.