Saudi National Bank to sell Samba shares

Receives better offers from two banks in bidding process

KARACHI:

Saudi National Bank (SNB) has taken over ownership of Samba Financial Group (SFG) and announced the divestment of Samba Bank Limited (Pakistan).

It has initiated due diligence for the sale of sponsor shares of Samba (Pakistan).

Three corporate entities United Bank Limited, Askari Bank Limited and Samba (Pakistan) Management Group (SMG) participated in bidding processes to purchase the shares of Samba (Pakistan).

“We understand that the above named two banks have quoted better offers as compared to Samba Management Group consortium and SNB management is taking final decision on bids received by them. Since banks have offered better prices as compared to SMG, it is expected that SNB will reject the bid of SMG and Fatima Group,” a statement said. It added that SMG, after realising that SNB is not considering their bid because of the lowest offered price and non-banking experience as compared to other bids, started blackmailing SNB and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and encouraged certain staff members to file a case on behalf of the bank staff to stop the transaction with following major demands:

SNB should pay some benefits to the Samba (Pakistan) staff from the sale amount of the bank as below options:

Current salary (multiple of service year with four times) or 36 gross salaries to all staff; write off all outstanding loans of staff.

On the other hand, the management group is offering that if SNB considers their bid, then there will be no need to pay any penny to the Samba Pakistan staff, the statement said.

The above highlighted demand is costing around Rs2.5 billion, which is peanut for SNB and hardly 10% of offered bids and rights of the bank staff to compensate for their hard work and struggle to make the bank a profitable organisation, it said.

HSBC and Barclays Bank were the good examples which gave valuable shares to their staff when they sold Pakistan shares.

“It is requested to the SBP and SNB that please do not consider blackmailing of Samba Management Group and give proper rights to the bank staff.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2022.

Like Business on Facebook, follow @TribuneBiz on Twitter to stay informed and join in the conversation.