KARACHI: United Bank Ltd (UBL) told its shareholders on Monday it was voluntarily winding up its wholly owned subsidiary, UBL (Switzerland) AG.

In a regulatory filing on the Pakistan Stock Exch­ange (PSX), the country’s third largest lender by total assets said the decision was in line with the bank’s strategy to exit from non-core markets. Closing down the subsidiary will not have any material impact on the overall operating and financial position of the bank, it added.

The latest quarterly accounts show the carrying value of UBL (Switzerland) AG on the holding company’s balance sheet was only Rs590 million, or 0.05 per cent of its total investments.

The subsidiary gets its revenues mainly from trade-related business. Its top line shrank 11pc year-on-year to Rs880m in 2020. Similarly, its profit amounted to Rs145m in 2020, down 55pc from a year ago.

UBL disposed of another wholly owned subsidiary, UBL Bank (Tanzania) Ltd, in November 2019. Its carrying value on the holding company’s balance sheet was Rs142m.

Before that, the bank closed down its New York branch and also liquidated its shareholding in Oman United Exchange Company, Muscat, to focus on its core markets.

With pre-tax earnings of Rs1.68 billion, UBL’s international branch operations contributed 13.4pc to the bank’s consolidated income-before-tax in the January-March quarter.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2021