RBB to end cross-holding by Ashoj, share auction by mid-Bhadra; Nabil Invest appointed RTS

ShareSansar, August 13:

The state-un Rastriya Banijya Bank is planning to divest all its cross-holding – 15 percent promoter shares each of Nepal Investment Bank Limited and Nepal Housing Finance Company Limited (NHFC)—by Ashoj end.

For that it is planning to hold yet another share auction by mid-Bhadra with a more flexible and inclusive approach.

“The auction will be held for public at large. Any bonafide individual and institutional investors can bid,” RBB’s Head of Treasury, Bhupendra Pandey told ShareSansar today. "We have appointed Nabil Investment Banking Limited as the RTS today itself."

He further informed that the bidders will have to bid for a minimum of 100 units.

Sources at  the state-run bank added that the minimum bid price per unit of promoter share of NIBL will be at least 10 percent lesser than Rs 594, which was the minimum bid price set for the last round of auction.

Similarly, the minimum bid price of HNFC is most likely to be Rs 101, the sourced added.

It may be noted that RBB has not been to off load more than 62.20 lakh units of promoter shares of NIBL and 1.58 lakh units of NHFC promoter shares despite repeated attempts.

Back in June, it had even urged public corporations to help square off those scrips.

RBB had failed to attract buyers to auction 56.52 lakh units of NIBL and 1.96 units of promoter shares of NHFC despite extending the deadline for filing applications for three times and making the bidding process more flexible than the previous rounds of auction.

According to RBB officials, they approached Nepal Telecom, Rastriya Beema Sansthan, Employees Provident Fund and Citizen Investment Trust to buy the promoter shares of NIBL and NHFC, which it has not been able to divest.

The central bank has been strongly directed the BFIs to end  cross-holding, and has warned that any BFI which does not do so will have to hold barred from getting cash and stock dividend and buying rights shares. The dividend would be released only after all the cross-holdings ends.