When he announced in mid-January that Shenzhen Development Bank's profits for 2008 were down 77 percent from the previous year, chairman and CEO Frank Newman stressed the positive. The bank took huge write-downs and bad-loan provisions, under orders from China's banking regulator, and succeeded in reducing its nonperforming loan ratio to 0.7 percent, down from 4.3 percent in September. The result? One of China's most spotless balance sheets.
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