The parent company of Citic Securities, which last year bought a $1bn (€707m) stake in US investment bank Bear Stearns, has said the Chinese broker is talking to the US bank's rivals about forming co-operation agreements.

Kong Dan, chairman of Citic Group, said in Beijing that the bank was in talks with other investment banks about co-operating, just a month after it emerged Citic was looking to renegotiate the terms of its investment in Bear Stearns, Bloomberg reports.