KARACHI: The federal government Saturday approved selling all of its state-owned shares in HBL with the country’s largest-ever equity offering of $1.02 billion.
According to the privatisation commission, the government received $1.6 billion of offers for its 41.5 percent in HBL during three days of book-building at London, New York, Singapore and Dubai.
“The (cabinet) committee has approved the selling of whole lot of its shares at 168 rupees a share,” Minister for Privatisation Mohammad Zubair told AFP after the meeting. “It was the largest-ever equity offering out of Pakistan and largest-ever equity offering in Asian frontier markets, which fetched demand of $1.6 billion.”
The Privatisation Commission of Pakistan said in a statement $1.02 billion of bids were accepted of the total $1.6 billion of offers.
HBL, formerly known as Habib Bank Limited, was part-privatised in 2004, with the Agha Khan Foundation buying the bulk of the shares.
The current offering is Pakistan’s largest privatisation deal since 2006, when the then government raised $712 million from selling its stake in Oil and Gas Development (OGDCL).
The government had planned to offer 250 million base shares in HBL, with an option of selling 390 million more depending on the response. A quarter were allocated for local investors with the rest to be sold internationally.
Analyst Mohammad Sohail, chief of Topline Securities, lauded the approval of the deal, saying it would bring much-needed foreign currency in the country. “Of all the shares, 75 percent have been offered to foreign investors and it would bring $746 million to add to the foreign exchange reserves,” he told AFP.
