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Weekly Lists
June 7, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 25
bne:Banker
Serbia hopes to sell stake in Komercijalna Banka for €415mn
Belarus, EBRD fail to agree Belinvestbank stake price
Serbia hopes to sell a majority stake in its second-largest bank, Komercijalna Banka, for €415mn, eKapija reported, quoting unnamed government sources. The whole bank was evaluated at €500mn.
At the end of May, Serbia launched a tender for the privatisation of Komercijalna Banka, seeking to attract a global bank. The government is the biggest shareholder in the bank and hopes to sell a stake of between 50.1% and 83.23%.
According to eKapija, the €415mn price for a stake of up to 83.23% is €15mn higher than the current market price of the bank’s whole stake on the Belgrade Stock Exchange.
The Belarusian government and the European Bank for Recon- struction and Development (EBRD) have significantly different esti- mates of the value of state-owned Belinvestbank, a stake in which should be purchased by the multinational lender.
According to a Belarusian government, the market value of all the Belinvestbank shares stood at BYN680.3mn ($325mn) as of early January, while the EBRD believes that the market value of the lend- er us around BYN251mn, according to state news agency BELTA.
In 2015, the EBRD and the Belarusian government agreed to privatise state-owned Belinvestbank after broadening its business activities and outreach. The EBRD will purchase a stake of 25% plus one share in the bank, after which controlling stakes will be sold to one or more strategic investors.
Slovakia’s former finance minister Peter Kazimir became the fifth governor of the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) on June 1, accord- ing to the NBS’ press release published on June 1.
Kazimir plans to continue the work of former governor Jozef Makuch so that the central bank continues to be perceived as a modern institution. He also plans to focus on digitising payment services, with a stress on protecting financial users and improving the bank's analytical activities. Regarding macroeconomic developments, he called the current period “complicated”. “Every new prognosis confirms that GDP growth is decelerating. However, there's still no reason to panic, as we find ourselves in a completely different situation than in 2008,” he said.
Former finance minister becomes new governor of Slovak central bank