May 4 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's First Investment Bank (Fibank) [BUL:5F4] said on Monday that it is launching a public offering of shares, seeking to raise 200 million levs ($111.8 million/102.3 million euro).
Fibank will offer up to 40 million shares with a par value of 1 lev and an issue price of 5 levs each, as subscription for the shares and stock exchange trading in the rights is expected to begin on May 15, Fibank said in a bourse filing.
The expected closing date for subscription of the shares is June 25.
Last month, Bulgaria's Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) approved the capital increase prospectus of Fibank after receiving a letter from the lender with revised parameters of the offering.
The lender's original capital increase prospectus which had the same parameters was turned down by the financial regulator in February. On April 15, Fibank submitted a revised prospectus, envisaging the offering of up to 25 million shares at a price of 8 levs apiece. The revised prospectus was then revised again, restoring the original parameters regarding the number of shares and issue price.
As at 15:15 CET on Monday, Fibank's shares traded 0.77% lower at 2.58 levs on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange.
In April, Bulgaria's finance minister Vladislav Goranov said that a single bank remains to complete the forming of additional capital buffers to make sure Bulgaria has fulfilled all conditions for joining the EU's Exchange Rate Mechanism.
Last year, the ECB found a capital shortfall of 262.9 million euro at Fibank and 51.8 million euro at Investbank during an asset quality review and a stress test of six Bulgarian banks it carried out back then. Investbank completed its measures addressing the capital shortfall earlier this month.
In December 2019, Fibank placed a 30 million euro bond issue bearing an annual coupon of 8%, and signed deals for the sale of non-performing loan (NPL) portfolios of some 538 million levs in face value. Subsequently, the lender included its 2019 net profit into its common equity tier 1 capital.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)
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