The Belgian financial group KBC is on the verge of signing a contract to sell its stake in Nova Ljubljanska Banka to the British investment fund Apax, Slovenian media report.
As reported by Slovenian Television on Tuesday, KBC refuses to comment on claims from numerous sources that it will sell its one-third stake in the largest Slovenian bank to Apax until the deal is finalized. Apax has already conducted due diligence on NLB. According to Slovenian media reports, there is no official information on when the contract between KBC and Apax will be signed, nor the shareholder agreement between Apax and the Slovenian government.
If the sale contract is signed before Sunday, when parliamentary elections are held in Slovenia, the transfer of ownership would not be completed immediately due to procedures that need to be carried out by the Slovenian central bank and the state agency for securities market. KBC purchased 34 percent of NLB shares for 435 million euros in 2002 during the government of Prime Minister Anton Rop.
KBC announced its exit from NLB ownership in 2006 after the current government of Janez Janša rejected the possibility for KBC, as a strategic investor, to increase its stake in NLB to over 50 percent. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has already sold its 5 percent stake in NLB to a Slovenian investor this year. News that KBC is negotiating a sale with the British equity fund emerged in global media at the end of August this year, after being first reported by the “Financial Times”.
According to Slovenian press, news of the conclusion of KBC’s negotiations with a potential new owner of one-third of NLB dispels speculation that the Belgian group might wait to sell, hoping that the new Slovenian government might agree to increase their stake to control the management of the largest Slovenian bank, which controls 40 percent of the domestic financial market. (H)
