Singapore's DBS picks Citi's Stanley as new CEO-sources

HONG KONG/SINGAPORE, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Southeast Asia's biggest lender DBS Group (DBSM.SI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) will pluck Richard Stanley from Citigroup as its new chief executive to breathe life into its China business, banking sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

Stanley, who is chief executive for Citigroup in China and has previously headed the U.S. bank's Southeast Asian operations, will replace Jackson Tai who resigned in September last year for family reasons.

Stanley, reached in Shanghai, declined to comment. A Citi spokesman and DBS also declined to comment.

The bank will in two days unveil its fourth-quarter earnings on Feb 15, for which analysts fear the bank would announce more writedowns due to its exposure to the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis.

Investors were looking for a CEO who could expand the brand beyond the bank's core markets -- Singapore and Hong Kong.

DBS is looking to emerging Asian markets to boost its earnings, 90 percent of which currently come from saturated Singapore and Hong Kong.

Tai's resignation came after DBS shares underperformed domestic rivals. Its shares were particularly hit hard last year by news it had more exposure to risky debt than initially declared, and after a troubled investment in Thailand's TMB Bank TMB.BK. (Reporting by Tony Munroe and Saeed Azhar, editing by Neil Chatterjee)