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“Pakistan will sell a stake in Pakistan State Oil Co. Ltd. by next two
months and the transaction will be completed by June this year after 14
companies expressed interest in the nation's biggest fuel supplier, asset
sale” said Mr. Zahid Hamid Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Privatisation &
Investment in an interview with Bloomberg says a message received here from
Singapore today.
`` The country will also sell shares of Habib Bank Ltd., the nation's
second-biggest lender, in an initial public offering by April. Habib Bank's
IPO is sure to do well and State Oil will be successful this time around
because the list of bidders is much longer.'' The government is in the process
of appointing advisers for Habib Bank and United Bank Ltd., the third-biggest
lender, Hamid said. Pakistan plans to sell global depository receipts of Habib
Bank, United Bank Ltd., and National Bank of Pakistan by June, he said.
National Bank's overseas share sale will be planned once ``technical issues''
are overcome, he said. Economic Expansion Pakistan's economy is forecast by
the government to expand 7 percent in the fiscal year that began July 1, from
6.6 percent a year ago. ``There's been a lot of buzz about Pakistan in the
last two or three years,'' Hamid said.
``We are now very prominently on the radar screen of international investors
and fund managers.'' Pakistan is making its second attempt to sell the stake
in State Oil. The government scrapped a plan to sell the company in 2003 after
Kuwait Petroleum Corp., one of two bidders, didn't follow through on its bid.
The second bidder was Pakistan's Fauji Foundation. Pakistan State Oil, which
has a market share of more than two-thirds in the South Asian nation of 160
million people, supplies fuels such as furnace oil, diesel, jet fuel,
lubricants and compressed natural gas to consumers in Pakistan through its
3,700 outlets. Pakistan is likely to get more overseas investment in its
financial sector as banks in the U.K. look to acquire lenders in South Asia's
second-biggest economy, Hamid said. There are also likely to be more mergers
among the nation's banks in the next 12 months, he said. Rising Investment
Standard Chartered Plc, the U.K. lender that makes two- thirds of its profit
in Asia, bought a stake in Pakistan's Union Bank Ltd., for $487 million in
August. Pakistan's foreign investment ``exceeded $3.3 billion'' in the first
six months of the fiscal year that began July 1, Hamid said.
“The telecommunications, construction, hotel and energy sectors are likely to
attract the bulk of overseas investment”, he said. Pakistan's got a record
$3.5 billion of overseas investment in the financial year ended June 30, 2006,
according to central bank data.
. Pakistan's government, which is selling state assets to help repay $36
billion of overseas debt, estimates it will raise as much as $15 billion in
five years selling shares in state-owned companies, Salman Shah, the
government's finance advisor to the Prime Minister said in November. Pakistan
has raised more than $ 7 billion selling state assets in the past 15 years.
``There is major interest in Pakistani bank shares because it is a great way
for investors to capture the growth in the economy,'' said Nasim Beg, chief
executive officer at Arif Habib Investment Management Ltd., which oversees the
equivalent of $320 million in stocks and bonds in Karachi.