Shareholders plan Misr Romanian Bank stake sale

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's state-owned Banque Misr and other shareholders are planning to sell a controlling stake in Misr Romanian Bank this year, a senior Banque Misr executive said on Sunday.

Banque Misr and Egyptian funds together hold 51 percent, while Romanian banks hold the remaining 49 percent.
"Banque Misr and other major shareholders are planning to sell a controlling share in Misr Romanian Bank before the end of 2005," the executive, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

Misr Romanian Bank was established as an Egyptian-Romanian joint venture in 1977 and has branches in both countries. It offers a range of retail and commercial services, such as personal loans, letters of credit and project finance.

The bank reported zero profit in the first three months of 2005, compared to 4.81 million Egyptian pounds in the same period a year earlier, the bank's Web site said. The bank had total assets of 3.7 billion pounds at the end of March 2005.

The bank's shares are listed but not traded, the executive said. He said Banque Misr had received some informal inquiries about buying a controlling stake but that the process was at a very early stage. He did not name any of the interested banks. The daily Al-Gomhuria said Lebanese bank BLOM had offered to buy a controlling stake in Misr Romanian Bank. BLOM officials could not immediately be reached for comment. The Egyptian government relaunched a stalled privatisation programme last year that includes selling state-owned stakes in banks.

Banque Misr and other shareholders agreed last week to sell a controlling stake in Misr International Bank to France's Societe Generale.

source