May 31 (SeeNews) - Serbia's finance ministry said on Friday it is inviting expressions of interest for the sale of at least 50.1% shareholding interest in blue-chip lender Komercijalna Banka [BEL:KMBN], including the entire state-owned stake of 41.75%.
The deadline for submitting letters of interest is June 21, the finance ministry said in a notice published on its website.
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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), IFC Capitalization Fund, German investment fund DEG and Swedfund, the finance ministry said.
In this way, the investor will be able to acquire a stake of up to 83.23%, the finance ministry said.
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 had assets of at least 1 billion euro ($1.1 billion) at the end of 2018 or a stake of at least 20% in the last ten years in at least one banking group with assets of more than 1 billion euro.
The bank has 16,817,956 issued ordinary shares owned by 1,176 shareholders and 373,510 preference shares owned by 644 shareholders. Komercijalna's market share in Serbia stands at 10.83% in terms of total assets. The bank holds 12.18% of the total deposits in Serbia's banking sector and 9.56% of total loans, the finance ministry said in October.
In February, the finance ministry signed an agreement with a consortium led by French investment bank Lazard Freres for the provision of financial advisory services on the privatisation of Komercijalna Banka.
($ = 0.89804 euro)
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