Komercijalna Banka plans additional capitalization worth 120m EUR

The President of the Executive Board of Belgrade's Komercijalna Banka, Ivica Smolić, said that he expected that the bank would increase its capital by 120m EUR in 2009, 50% more than planned.

Smolić said in the interview for today's issue of weekly magazine Ekonomist that the preparations for additional capitalization were in progress and that the European Bank for REconstruction and DEvelopment (EBRD), International Finance Corporation (IFC), German DEG, Swedish Sved Fund and some other international financial institutions would take part in that additional capitalization.

- I am now sure that the issue of preferential stocks will help us collect 120m EUR, which is 50% more than we initially planned - said he and added that "as things stand now, that could be a half of all additional capitalizations in the banking sector of Serbia in 2009".

He said that the state would be able to join the additional capitalization later, and added that he expected that that would happen either in 2010 or in 2011.

As he explained, only the preferential stocks will be issued for the time being in order for the state's managerial rights not to be reduced, and the preferential stocks can later be turned into the managerial ones.

Smolić said that he doubted that the state would decide to sell its share in Komercijalna Bank because of the significant increase in price of stocks of the bank in the last few weeks.

The state has the share of 42.6%, while EBRD owns 25% of Komercijalna Banka.