September 02, 2007	Sunday	Sha’aban 19, 1428

KARACHI, Sept 1: The Atlas Bank Limited has signed an agreement to sell 24.9 per cent shares of the bank to a large European banking group, Deutsche Investitions-und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH.

The trend of selling banks to European giants continues to dominate Pakistani banking sector despite hefty profits earned by the Pakistani private banks. In fact, major share in profit was made by Pakistani banks.

Unlike the complete sell-off, the Atlas group would sell a minority shares of about 25pc to the DEG group, enabling it to take a seat on the board of directors.

Previously banks had sold out 95 to 100 per cent shares as in the case of the Union Bank and the Prime Bank enabling foreign banks to have much bigger access to Pakistani market which they never achieved in this region.

For DEG, this is the first financing of a Pakistani commercial bank. With this financing, the group would enable the Atlas Bank to expand its financing business for small and medium size enterprises.

The technical know-how of the group would support the Atlas Bank in its development. This agreement will also help Atlas Bank to exceed SBP’s mandated capital requirements.

The Atlas Bank presently has an equity of over Rs3 billion and balance-sheet footing of over Rs20 billion. It has 20 branches in all major cities of the country.