Bahria Town may finally break up with its bank

After four years of being on the market, Escorts Investment Bank Ltd (ESBL) may have finally found a new home.

A public announcement of intention filed with the Pakistan Stock Exchange on April 17 discloses that Mr Kamran Malik, a Geneva‑based private‑banker, and Mr Sheikh Ali Baakza, chairman of Karachi’s Unicorn Group, have struck a share‑purchase agreement (SPA) to buy Bahria Town (Pvt) Ltd’s entire 87.96 per cent stake — 119.28 million shares — and will follow it with a mandatory tender offer for another 6.02 per cent, or 8.16 million shares, held by the public.

AKD Securities, an investment bank, is acting as manager to the offer. The filing stresses that completion is contingent on regulatory approvals; no purchase price has yet been disclosed, a common feature at this stage. At Friday’s closing price of Rs 5.86 on the Pakistan Stock Exchange, the whole bank is worth barely Rs 794 million.

Why Malik Riaz is moving on

The sale draws a line under property tycoon Malik Riaz’s eight‑year experiment in financial services. Bahria Town paid a symbolic Rs1 in July 2017 to rescue Escorts — which had defaulted on Rs5.7 billion of obligations — and injected Rs1.2 billion of fresh capital, aiming to build an in‑house mortgage engine for the group’s sprawling housing projects.