Rupali Bank Sell-Off
Negotiation to finalise documents deferred, fresh date soon
Sarwar A Chowdhury
Negotiation for finalising the sale and purchase agreement to hand over the state-owned Rupali Bank to its Saudi buyer has been deferred for an indefinite period due to the present law and order situation arisen out of the ongoing political turmoil in the country, said sources in the Privatisation Commission yesterday.Commission Chairman Enam Ahmed Chaudhury said, "As the representatives of Prince Bandar Bin Mohammad Bin Abdul Rahman Al Saudi now feel insecure to come to the commission for negotiation, we had to defer the talks for making all documents ready for inking the deal in consultation with the finance ministry." According to the finance ministry sources, the adviser in charge of the ministry is too busy with political issues to focus on the issues like Rupali Bank sell-off. Chaudhury said Mortada Yassin Mostafa Batti, legal adviser to the Saudi prince, has already left Dhaka while a financial adviser to the prince is yet to pay his scheduled visit to Dhaka. "On easing the law and order, the finance ministry would announce a fresh date for the negotiation, " Chaudhury told The Daily Star. He, however, hastened to add that a team of the Saudi buyer's representatives is expected to arrive here then. Some issues such as completion of final vetting from the law ministry and a clearance on ownership of Rupali Bank headquarters from the public works and housing ministry are yet to be settled, he further said. Meanwhile, a commission meeting on Monday put forward its recommendation to the government about the sale of the remaining 26 per cent government-owned shares of Rupali Bank with a price of US$134 million to the Saudi prince. Earlier on August 27, the commission declared the Saudi prince as the highest bidder. On October 5, the then prime minister, Khaleda Zia, okayed the bid of $330 million to buy 67.26 percent stake in the bank. The government that owned 94 per cent shares of Rupali Bank decided to sell 67 per cent of them in order to appease both the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), which conditioned their loans with the country's banking sector reforms. In March last year, the government assigned the Privatisation Commission to sell the bank. If the 93.26 percent stake in the bank is sold out, then the general public will hold the bank's remaining 6.74 percent shares. Total assets of the Rupali Bank as showed in December 2005 stood at $1.07 billion and it has over 493 branches across the country. Meanwhile, the outgoing chairman of the Privatisation Commission, Enam Ahmed Chaudhury, spent his last working day at the commission yesterday. From today, Syed Ataur Rahman, member-1 of the commission, will start performing the chairman's routine job.
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