KARACHI, Nov 24: President of state-run National Bank Ali Raza said on Saturday that the ongoing voluntary handshake scheme of the bank is the last one and the management would offer no such scheme in the future.

“There is an opportunity (for those who had joined the bank on any other ground rather than merit) to put some money in their pocket and walk away.”

Raza said this at a press conference that he had called at his office to reveal initial details about subscription received for off-loading of five per cent NBP shares on stock markets. He said that according to first estimate the initial public offering of Rs186 million worth of NBP shares attracted subscription worth Rs745 million. The issue was over-subscribed four times. He said subscription figures are being compiled, and that final figures would surely be higher.

Raza said now that the state-run NBP was being privatized it was in the interest of those employees who had not entered the bank on merit to avail of the present voluntary handshake scheme.

“Because once the bank is privatized (even though partly) the new management might ask them to leave.”

He would not say how many people the bank aims at getting rid of through the scheme insisting that it is a purely voluntary scheme.

Raza said the ongoing voluntary handshake scheme would close on December 8 but he would not say how many people have so far applied for separation under this scheme.

The NBP chief said he hoped that the government would exercise green shoe option meaning that it could offer another five per cent shares of the NBP among those who had already subscribed for the first lot of five per cent. “But of course this decision has to be taken by the owners of the bank i.e. the government and the management.” Raza said balloting of the subscription received for NBP shares would be held either on November 30 or on December 1 again clarifying that this has to be decided by the government.

Raza said the Rs745 million worth of subscription received so far included Rs131 million subscription by overseas Pakistanis living in United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

“This shows that non-resident Pakistanis are once again taking a lot of interest in investment opportunities in their country.”

He said had Saudi Arabia also allowed Pakistan to launch NBP initial public offering there the bank must have got a big response as a large number of Pakistanis live there. But he would not say on what grounds the Saudi regulators refused to do this.

Replying to a question he said no quota was fixed for accepting the subscription by the non-resident Pakistanis adding that small investors (both local as well as non-resident) would be first to buy NBP shares at the offered price. Small investors were those who had subscribed for up to 1000 shares each.

The NBP chief said kerb trading had already started in the NBP shares adding that the price had been quoted well above the face value of Rs10. But he made it clear that the kerb trading did not reflect anything, and that the strength of the share would be known only when its formal trading starts.