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| Business |
| Press Trust, Mauritian firm take control of IndeBank |
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by
Aubrey Mchulu, 20 February 2005
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15:31:27
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Public charity Press Trust and TransAfrica Holdings Limited (TAH) of Mauritius have taken control of IndeBank Limited following their buying of majority stakes.
Press Trust executive secretary Clement Chilingulo said in an interview on Thursday that the Trust and TAH have bought off external shareholding in IndeBank Limited, an investment and development bank turned into a commercial bank two years ago.
“We [Press Trust and TAH] are now majority shareholders in IndeBank. We have bought 71.38 percent from external shareholders,” he said.
The Trust and THA have bought shares previously held by Commonwealth Development Corporation, German financial institution DEG, FMO of Holland and the European Investment Bank (EIB).
Following this development, IndeBank’s new shareholders are TAH, Press Trust and Admarc Investment Holdings Limited (AIHL), IndeBank director Kofi Sekyere said in a statement adding that TAH will now manage IndeBank under a management agreement.
He said TAH has operated in the Malawi market since 1998 when it established Continental Discount House Limited in which TAH and Press Trust are majority shareholders.
Press Trust’s partnership with TAH to own majority shares comes four years after government and donors exerted pressure on the conglomerate Press Corporation, in which the Trust own the single largest shares block at 49 percent, to quit one commercial bank.
PCL admitted that it sold its 60 percent shareholding in Commercial Bank of Malawi (CBM) to Stanbic Bank of South Africa under government and donor pressure that the corporation was being monopolistic by owning shares in both CBM and National Bank of Malawi.
But Chilingulo dismissed suggestions that PCL was reverting back to what government and donors condemned through the Trust saying the two transactions were different and that the Trust is not PCL’s majority shareholder.
“This [IndeBank] transaction went through the Reserve Bank of Malawi and the authorities there approved the deal,” he said.
Chilingulo said the new board of IndeBank will decide on the position of the bank’s chief executive, among other things.
Susan Banda, information, education and communications manager for the Privatisation Commission, said the commission shall dispose off AIHL’s remaining 28.62 percent stakes when time is ripe.
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