Govt now to go for reactivation of Rupali Bank
The government will go for reactivation of state-run Rupali Bank before taking any policy decision on the bank's future.
“We'll see how we can activate the bank first…the policy decision on its future will be taken later,” Finance Adviser Dr Mirza Azizul Islam said, while talking to the news agency yesterday in Dhaka.
He said recruitment processes, as well as, lending operations of the bank remained in halt, while other banking operations of the bank were hampered due to the privatisation move.
The Advisors' Committee on Economic Affairs decided on Monday to drop Rupali Bank from its privatisation list as the winning bidder Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Mohammad Bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud failed to sign a purchase agreement within the stipulated time.
Finance Adviser spoke of three alternative policy options regarding the bank's future after reactivation.
“The first would be to corporatise the bank, while the second would be to try to offload some more shares in the capital market, depending on the share price, and the last would be to make another attempt to sell it out,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance has all Rupali Bank files and documents back to the Finance Ministry from the Privatisation Commission.
The Advisors' Committee on Economic Affairs instructed the Privatisation Commission to cancel the tender for selling Rupali Bank.
The Saudi Prince, participating in the tender, had won the bid in 2006 and proposed to invest a total of $500 million in the state-run Rupali Bank, of which $330 million was set for buying the bank's 67 per cent shares and thefor its modernisation.
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