December 19, 2007	Wednesday	Zilhaj 8, 1428

KARACHI, Dec 18: Faysal Bank Limited — one of the three major Letter of Comfort (LoC) holders in National Investment Trust (NIT) — has announced its intent to accept the government’s offer of redemption of 10 per cent of total units outstanding in the bank’s books as well as extension of LoC up to Dec 31, 2008.

In a notice to the Karachi Stock Exchange, under the regulation of ‘disclosure as per corporate governance’, the bank announced on Monday that the government through its letter dated December 4 had advised that NIT would be facilitated to redeem 10 per cent of total units under LOC outstanding in the Faysal Bank’s books on or before December 31, 2007, subject to the extension of LOC up to December 31, 2008, at the redemption price prevailing on the date of such redemption.

“In this context, we are in process of advising our acceptance to the government for extension of LOC date as well as the redemption of 16.70 million units being 10 per cent holding in NIT units,” the bank said. It added that the above units were also being lodged with NIT for redemption before December 31, 2007. “The aforesaid redemption is estimated to yield sale proceeds of about Rs1.03 billion, which includes capital gain of about Rs761 million,” the bank announced.