GE to buy stake in China's Hangzhou Boiler -report

BEIJING, Oct 17 (Reuters) - General Electric (GE.N) may buy a 25 percent stake in China's Hangzhou Boiler Group for as much as HK$700 million, a Chinese newspaper reported on Friday.

China Business News, without identifying its sources, said GE was in talks with an unnamed Hong Kong company to acquire its 25 percent stake in Hangzhou Boiler, with an eye to steering it towards a stock market listing in China.

The newspaper said the Xizi Elevator company, also based in Hangzhou, was the majority shareholder in the boiler group.

Hangzhou Boiler had sales of more than 2 billion yuan ($292.8 million) in 2006.

The newspaper did not specify which unit of GE was interested in making a deal.

In China, GE Capital, the U.S. conglomerate's financial services arm, invests in companies directly and is also a limited partner of CITIC Capital, an investment house under China's top financial conglomerate CITIC Group. ($1=6.830 Yuan) (Reporting by Simon Rabinovitch; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree)