Half a billion euro is the value set by the Government of Serbia for the sale of 100% of Komercijalna Banka’s capital, which sale is planned to take place by the end of the year.
Considering that up to 83.2% of the bank’s capital is offered on sale, the bank might be sold for about EUR 415 million, which is around EUR 15 million more than the bank’s current market price at the Belgrade Stock Exchange.
As an unnamed source told the Blic daily, in that case, the ratio between the market price and the book value of a share is 0.85, a good price in today’s circumstances:” The final sales price might be greatly influenced by negotiations between the state and the purchaser.”
Want to open a company in Serbia? Click here!
On Friday, the Ministry of Finance launched a call for submission of letters of interest for the sale of at least 50.1% of the shareholding interest in Komercijalna Banka, including the entire state-owned stake of 41.75%.
The deadline for submission of letters of interest is June 21st.
In addition to purchasing the state-owned stake, the buyer should acquire all or part of the 41.48% shareholding interest in Komercijalna Banka, currently held by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the IFC Capitalization Fund, the German investment fund DEG and Swedfund.
In this way, the investor will be able to acquire a stake of up to 83.23%.
Investors engaged in banking activities in the last three years will be eligible for participation in the tender for the sale of Komercijalna Banka.
Interested investors are required to have assets of at least 1 billion euro at the end of 2018 or a stake of at least 20% in the last ten years in at least one banking group with assets of more than 1 billion euro.
The bank has 16,817,956 issued ordinary shares owned by 1,176 shareholders and 373,510 preference shares owned by 644 shareholders. Komercijalna’s market share in Serbia stands at 10.83% in terms of total assets. The bank holds 12.18% of the total deposits in the Serbian banking sector and 9.56% of the total loans, the Finance Ministry said in October.
In February, the finance ministry signed a contract with a consortium led by French investment bank Lazard Freres for providing financial advisory services on the privatization of Komercijalna Banka.
The tender is launched in accordance with the stipulations in the Policy Coordination Instrument, which was signed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The bank has 202 branches in Serbia and a total of 2,770 employees. It also operates in the Republic of Srpska and Montenegro.
(Blic, 03.06.2019)
This post is also available in: Italiano