ISLAMABAD, June 10: The Muslim Commercial Bank & Associates on Monday offered the highest bid of Rs8.5 billion to acquire the government’s 51 per cent shareholding in the United Bank.

The Privatisation Commission will now send the highest bid for evaluation to the State Bank on whose recommendations the Cabinet Committee on Privatization will approve or disapprove the biggest banking transaction in the country’s history. The CCOP is expected to meet sometime this week. The sealed bids were opened in the presence of a large number of people, including the representatives of print and electronic media.

The Consortium of MCB and Associates were the highest bidders, followed by the Consortium of Abu Dhabi Group & Bestway Group who put up an offer of Rs4.8 billion and the Union Bank and Associates who tabled a bid of Rs4.5 billion.

This is the first major transaction in the financial sector being handled by the financial advisors Societe General & AMZ Securities. The PC did not fix its reference price, maintaining that the central bank, the regulator and owner of the UBL, will decide about the issue of price.

Each share of the bank has been calculated at Rs32.18 by the Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) which was also cleared by the State Bank and the Finance Division, Secretary Privatization Commission Ahmad Waqar told Dawn.

He conceded that the government had injected Rs7.9 billion into the bank a few months ago for improving its financial health. “The government had to inject money into the UBL to complete its capital adequacy,” he added. However, he said that everything will have to be evaluated and calculated before finalizing a deal.

The UBL is one of Pakistan’s three leading commercial banks, having a countrywide and international branch network. It has a full service licence to do commercial, retail, consumer and investment banking, not only in Pakistan but also in most of the other countries where it has a presence.