CITIC Securities, China's biggest listed brokerage, said on Tuesday it had won approval to operate a private equity business on a trial basis, investing in companies before their initial public offerings.

The brokerage would spend 831 million yuan (US$110.5 million) to set up a private equity unit, it said in a statement published in the China Securities Journal. The arm would use its own funds for the business, it said.

The securities regulator restricts domestic private equity firms to invest only in companies that had firm plans to issue new shares and places a three-year cap on such investments, the newspaper reported.

China International Capital Corp, about one-third owned by Morgan Stanley , has also won such approval, the report said.