The new senior management of Guangdong Development Bank (GDB) said on their Tuesday debut that the bank is not having any layoff plan in the near future.

The bank completed its share transfer to new shareholders including the Citigroup on Monday and a new directorate was elected on the same day, in which Li Ruohong will take the board chairman office and Michael Zink will be the president of the bank.

But the election results will not take effect until it is approved by China Banking Regulatory Commission.

Li said on a Tuesday press conference that all the core indices of the GDB were remarkably improved after the restructuring.

Currently, the net assets of the company reached 12.5 billion yuan (about 1.6 billion U.S. dollars). The current bad loan rate of the bank was 5 percent and the bad assets rate was 4 percent.

Zink, who was a senior manager of Citigroup, said GDB will establish a transparent communications mechanism, improve the marketing policy and expand its business scope and network in the future.

The bank now has over 12,000 staff and some media reported that a large scale layoff move would be performed when the GDB completed its restructuring.

But Li said they have not any layoff plans in the near future because the bank will need more employees if it wants to grow stronger in China.

Instead of the layoff plan, Li said, they have made systematic training and promotion plans for their staff members.

Zhong Yangsheng, deputy governor of Guangdong Province held a meeting with members of the newly elected directorate of the bank and said the provincial government will, as before, provide good services for the bank's future development.

The GDB has announced the completion of its share transfer to new shareholders including the Citigroup on Monday afternoon.

So far, all the fund for nearly 85.6 percent of GDB's shares has been transacted into the GDB's account, a company source confirmed Tuesday.

In addition to Citigroup, other shareholders are China Life Insurance Group and China Guodian Corp, respectively the nation's largest insurer and major electricity distributor.

Each of the three companies hold 20 percent of the GDB's shares respectively. The other three institutes hold about the remaining 25 percent.

The Citigroup-led consortium of new shareholders signed a purchase agreement of 24.27 billion yuan (3.03 billion U.S. dollars) with the GDB last month to acquire nearly 85.6 percent of the bank, ending a lengthy battle with French bank Societe Generale and China's second largest insurer Ping An Group.

Also on Monday, the China Banking Regulatory Commission approved the GDB's application for foreign shareholders, said a statement on the commission's website.

"After receiving applications from the GDB, we have conducted a strict qualification examination based on relevant laws and regulations. Then we decided to approve the new shareholders," said the statement.

The GDB was established in 1988 and developed into a national bank with assets worth 370 billion yuan (46.25 billion dollars) and more than 12,000 employees.

"We have made progress in the GDB reform and restructuring, butmuch work is yet to be done before developing it into a modern commercial bank with international competitiveness," said the statement.