UPDATE: MCB Bank To Buy RBS Operations In Pakistan For PKR7.2 Billion
August 12 2009 - 1:06AM
Dow Jones News
MCB Bank Ltd. (MCB.KA) said Wednesday it has agreed to buy Royal
Bank of Scotland Group PLC's (RBS) operations in Pakistan for
PKR7.2 billion ($87 million).
MCB Bank will acquire 99.37% of the stake for PKR4.22 per share
in cash and buy the remaining through a public tender, Kafeel
Burney, a spokesman for MCB Bank, told Dow Jones Newswires.
The transaction will help MCB Bank to strengthen its operations
in urban areas and broaden its product offering to retail and
corporate customers, Chairman Mian Muhammad Mansha said in a
statement to the Karachi Stock Exchange.
Muhammad Aurangzeb, chairman of RBS Pakistan, confirmed the deal
and said his company's retail, commercial, Islamic and onshore
businesses will be sold to MCB Bank.
The asset sale is a part of RBS's three- to five-year plan in
unwinding its partial acquisition of ABN AMRO, which is widely seen
as a strategic misstep.
Early this year, RBS, which is 70%-owned by the U.K. government,
said it planned to sell its Asian retail-banking assets as part of
a move to shed its non-core assets.
RBS currently operates 79 branches in Pakistan, including three
Islamic banking branches. It has a loan book of PKR67 billion,
deposits of PKR75 billion and assets of PKR108 billion.
MCB Bank had a loan book of PKR257 billion, deposits of PKR338
billion and assets of PKR458 billion at the end of the first
quarter.
-By Haris Zamir, contributing to Jones Newswires;
91-11-43563354; meenakshi.ray@dowjones.com