LAHORE: A change in ownership took place on Monday in MCB representing 5.49% of the shareholding in the bank.
Bugis Investments (Mauritius) Pte Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fullerton Financial Holdings (Singapore) Pte. Ltd , sold off all of its 5.49% stake in MCB to the major sponsors of the bank. The announcement was made on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) by MCB on Monday, the day of the transaction.
The company notice read, “MCB has undergone a change of ownership representing approximately 5.49% of its voting ordinary shares as per the details set our below:
Bugis Investments (Mauritius) Pte Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fullerton Financial Holdings Pte Ltd, has transferred and sold all of the 65,020,947 ordinary shares of par value PKR 10/- each held by it in MCB, which are equivalent to 5.49% of MCB’s issued share capital, to seven existing MCB shareholders, comprising three companies and four individuals, namely Nishat Mills Limited (7,111,360 shares), Adamjee Insurance Company Limited (4,029,204 shares), Nishat Paper Products Company Limited (3,000,000 shares), Mrs Ammil Raza (4,842,812 shares), Mian Raza Mansha (12,933,084 shares), Mrs Naz Mansha (21,254,887 shares), Mian Umer Mansha (11,850,600 shares).”
Mrs Naz Mansha is the spouse of MCB’s founder and chairman Mian Mohammad Mansha while Mian Umer Mansha is a director on the board of MCB.
The transaction was completed on Monday at PKR 115 per share for a cumulative total of PKR 7.48 billion. This is the largest investment made in MCB by its existing shareholders in the past few years.
According to Suleman Maniya, head of advisory at Vector Securities, “This deal was in the making for the past 2-3 months. Bugis is a foreign investor. A lot of foreign investors in Pakistan’s equity markets are making a beeline for the exit currently. And so the sponsors decided this is a good price to buy in. They have been buying in slow quantities over the past few months, but this is perhaps the largest and biggest addition made by the Mansha family in the past 5-6 years in MCB. It also shows the sponsors’ confidence in the bank and they feel the valuations have bottomed out making it a right time for investment.”
MCB Bank is one of the oldest banks of Pakistan, incorporated in the private sector in 1947. It was nationalized in 1974 and privatized in 1991. MCB Bank’s major shareholding is owned by Nishat group, a prominent business conglomerate, having diversified interests in Textiles, Cement, Banking, Insurance, Power Generation, Hotel Business, Agriculture, Dairy, Auto Manufacturing and Paper Products.
In 2017, Fullerton Financial Holdings (International) of Singapore through Bugis Investments (Mauritius) Pte Ltd acquired 5.49% stake in MCB under merger scheme of NIB Bank with and into MCB Bank Limited.
MCB is the first Pakistani Bank which incorporated a wholly owned Islamic Banking subsidiary, MCB Islamic Bank Limited, to meet requirements of a significant segment of society for financial solutions that conform to Shariah rulings.
The Bank operates a strong and vast network of over 1400 Branches and over 1450 ATMs in Pakistan and 11 branches overseas with a footprint in UAE, Bahrain and Sri Lanka. With a customer base of over 7 million, MCB is a leader in the banking & financial services sector in Pakistan.
