The Slovenian government has decided to sell part of its state stake in Nova Kreditna Banka Maribor (NKBM) to citizens through an Initial Public Offering (IPO).
As stated by Finance Minister Andrej Bajuk at a press conference on Thursday, the government will issue a prospectus with details of the sale of part of the bank’s shares to citizens at the beginning of next week. Bajuk said that the government’s intention, as part of the privatization of the bank, is to offer citizens, as small shareholders, about 15 percent of the total number of shares in state ownership. The state directly owns 49 percent of the shares in NKBM. For every ten shares of the bank, citizens would be offered one additional share at a discount if they retained the shares and did not sell them within a period of 5 to 9 months.
Bajuk stated that the government aims to achieve as dispersed a shareholding as possible in the bank it wishes to privatize while retaining a strategic stake, and that subscription for shares will be possible throughout Slovenia. Bajuk reminded that the Slovenian parliament adopted a resolution 13 years ago stating that during the privatization of Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB) and Nova Kreditna Banka Maribor (NKBM), it is necessary to ensure that citizens, i.e., savers, receive a stake in them, as both banks were rehabilitated in the 1990s through a program supported by savers. The upper limit of the amount that citizens could subscribe for shares in the bank is still unknown, but it could range from two to three thousand euros, Bajuk said. (H)
