July 05, 2006	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 8, 1427

KARACHI, July 4: MCB Bank Ltd has said it is planning to issue global depository receipts to be listed on the London Stock Exchange. “A consortium of Merrill Lynch and KASB has been mandated to place the issue with institutional and retail investors outside Pakistan, it said in a statement to the Karachi Stock Exchange on Tuesday. It did not give any size or time frame for the planned issue.

MCB Bank has an asset base of around $5 billion and a deposit base of over $3.8 billion, the statement said. The bank has a market capitalisation of over $1.7 billion and is the second largest listed bank on the Karachi Stock Exchange behind National Bank of Pakistan.

This is the second planned GDR issue by a Pakistani entity in recent months.

In May, the government of Pakistan appointed Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and BMA Capital Management to manage a sale of up to 15 per cent of OGDCL through a GDR issue and a domestic offering.—Reuters