Yang YunfeiSHENZHEN Development Bank Friday declined to comment on reports that it had decided to sell a 15 percent stake to U.S. private equity fund Newbridge Capital. An official at the board secretary’s office said that the Shenzhen-listed lender had “nothing to disclose” regarding the Newbridge Capital buy-in reports.“We’ve said that there’s nothing that needed to be disclosed,” the official said, refusing to comment further.China News Service and several Hong Kong newspapers reported Thursday that the medium-sized Shenzhen bank, one of China’s four domestically listed lenders, had agreed to sell 15 percent of itself to Newbridge for 1.5 billion yuan (US$180 million).The reports said that all the shares are non-tradable legal person shares.The China News Service report said Newbridge would provide Shenzhen Development Bank’s chairman and had already sent staff to work in the bank.The bank’s yuan-denominated A shares had surged 36 percent since late July when rumours first surfaced that three foreign institutions, including Newbridge Capital, JP Morgan and HSBC Holdings, were in separate talks with the bank for a tie-up.The bank immediately issued a statement, declining to comment on the stake sale rumours.China is opening its sheltered banking sector, still dominated by State banks, to foreign players gradually as it promised on joining the World Trade Organization last December. Many smaller domestic banks are seeking foreign investors to help sharpen their competitiveness amid increased competition from foreign rivals following the WTO entry.A tie-up with foreign banks can give domestic banks much-needed capital and expertise.