Govt proposes CCB to buy stake in ADBL

KATHMANDU, April 22 :

The government has formally asked China Construction Bank (CCB) to become strategic partner of Agricultural Development Bank Limited (ADBL). It has offered 30 percent stake in ADBL to the Beijing-based bank.

A negotiation team formed by the government was recently in Beijing to hold talks with top management of CCB. The team was led by Krishna Prasad Devkota, joint secretary at the Ministry of Finance (MoF).

The team, however, failed to convince the CCB officials, according to highly-placed officials of ADBL.

CCB is ranked among top five banks of the world.

The government aims to induct a strong strategic partner in ADBL by 2014 as per the reforms initiated under the assistance of Asian Development Bank (ADB).

It had initiated reforms in two other state-owned banks - Nepal Bank Limited (NBL) and Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB) - under the financial assistance of the World Bank and the Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK government.

The government will open global tender for strategic partner for ADBL after the meeting of privatization committee which is chaired by the finance minister, according to Devkota.

“Interest banks from across the world can submit their Letter of Intent (LoI),” Devkota said, adding, “We held meeting with CCB officials to inform them about the government decision to induct a strategic partner in ADBL.”

He also said the team held talks with CCB officials as per the request of the ADB.

The government owns 51 percent stake in ADBL. It has issued 44 percent of shares to general public, while remaining 5 percent of shares are held by the bak staffers.

Altogether 2,098,816 units of shares of ADBL have been listed in Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse). The shares closed trading at Rs 467 per unit on Monday.

The bank recently conducted a special audit to present it before the interested bidders, according to Tej Bahadur Budhathoki, CEO of ADBL.

Source: Republica