Credit Suisse Group, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs Group are among the banks that have been asked to submit plans to manage a $10 billion initial public share sale by China's biggest lender, bankers receiving the proposals said. It would be the world's largest initial public offering in six years.

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China on Friday sent out letters asking the investment banks to submit proposals on valuations and other details of the IPO before Tuesday, the bankers said, asking not to be identified before the sale happens.

HSBC, Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan Chase and China International Capital also have been invited to compete for managing underwriting of the issue, potentially the biggest ever in China, the investment bankers said.

The assignment may result in $250 million in fees and will probably help the winning investment bank secure the top slot arranging Chinese share sales overseas. Chinese companies sold $34 billion of shares outside the mainland last year, 44 percent of the total in Asia excluding Japan.

"The sale could be the biggest ever out of China and I don't expect there would be any IPO bigger than that in the future," said Sam Ho, a fund manager at KDB Asia in Hong Kong. "Getting this underwriting mandate means a lot for the investment banks' reputations and league rankings in China."

Morgan Stanley and Citigroup were not invited to compete for the mandate, the bankers said. The exclusions come after the banks lost their top managers in China this year. Cheung Po-ling, a spokeswoman at Morgan Stanley, and Richard Tesvich at Citigroup declined to comment.

Wei Christianson, former head for China at Citigroup, quit last month. The chairman for Asia, Francis Leung, plans to leave Citigroup before the end of March. Morgan Stanley lost Jonathan Zhu as chief executive for China last month. Christianson will join Morgan Stanley in May to succeed Zhu.

Industrial & Commercial Bank will be the third of the big four state-owned Chinese lenders selling shares outside the mainland, and it may list in Hong Kong as early as the third quarter, bankers said earlier.

Bank of China, the second-largest lender, hired Goldman, UBS and BOC International Holdings, its investment banking unit, to arrange an IPO of $6 billion to $8 billion.

China Construction Bank, the No.3 lender, hired Morgan Stanley and China International Capital to sell $9.2 billion shares in its IPO in November. The sale lifted Morgan Stanley to the top place in arranging Chinese share sales outside the mainland in 2005, from second the year before.

Industrial & Commercial Bank's IPO would be the largest since 2000, when New Cingular Wireless Services, a unit of the biggest U.S. cellphone carrier, sold $10.6 billion in first-time shares in April that year.

Industrial & Commercial has eight million corporate clients and more than 100 million retail customers. It sold a 10 percent stake to Goldman Sachs, Allianz and American Express for a combined $3.78 billion.