Serbia’s Metals Banka Plans Capital Hike To Back Product Portfolio Expansion

Metals Banka will propose to its shareholders to raise its capital at their next meeting scheduled for September 30, it said in a filing to the Belgrade Stock Exchange (BELEX) late on Thursday.

The raised funds will be allocated to development of new products and services, and to supporting the bank's competitiveness, the statement said.

The bank’s equity capital consists of 339,749 shares with a par value of 12,850 dinars ($246/168 euro) each. The stock traded at 20,000 dinars around 0915 GMT on Friday, down 0.52% from the previous close.

Last month, the bank became the fourth issuer listed on the top tier of the Belgrade bourse in addition to rubber and chemicals group Tigar, engineering holding company Energoprojekt and soybean processing company Sojaprotein. All other listed company stocks are traded on the unregulated BELEX market.

Companies traded on the unregulated market are required to publish their financial reports once a year. To list on the top tier, a company needs to publish financial reports quarterly, to have  capital of at least 10 million euro ($14.6 million) and at least 25% of its equity capital should be owned by minority shareholders.
 
Metals Banka raised its net profit by 21.8% year-on-year to 358.4 million dinars in the first half of 2008. It ranked the 21st largest bank in Serbia with assets of 21 billion dinars at the end of June when 34 banks were active in Serbia.

(1 euro = 76.3872 dinars)