U.S. Morgan Stanley starts selling shares of Komercijalna Banka

U.S. investment fund Morgan Stanley sold the largest number of shares of Komercijalna Banka last week, during which the bank's securities turnover reached an excellent amount of RSD 82.3 million.

Foreign portfolio investors were also dominant buyers last week and, as the data provided by the Central Securities Register show, the buyer in the first big last week's transaction was the custody account of Austrian UniCredit Bank. Morgan Stanley had a stake of about 0.7% in Komercijalna Banka and what is interesting is that it acquired most of these shares in April 2009 at the price of RSD 18,000, which was an introduction to the recovery and the first big leap of the market after a two-year strong declining trend. Major The U.S. investment fund bought the biggest portion of shares from the company Invej, which is still one of the biggest minor shareholders of this state-controlled bank.

Except in Komercijalna Banka, Morgan Stanley also had a significant stake in the biggest domestic dairy industry - Imlek, which it sold in late July 2010 at the price of RSD 1,350 per share. Upon the sale of the stake in Imlek, the value of which later grew by about 60%, Komercijalna Banka was the only remaining portfolio investment of Morgan Stanley in the domestic capital market.

Since the beginning of the year, the shares of Komercijalna Banka have grown by 15.2%. With the latest price of RSD 30,011 per share, the market capitalization of this banking institution amounts to RSD 26.1 billion (EUR 253 million). By the end of 2012, Komercijalna Banka should be recapitalized by the state, which would almost double the number of its common shares and the value of its market capitalization. In late September 2010, Komercijalna Banka had assets worth RSD 253.9 billion and ranked second in the domestic banking market with a 10.5% share. The gross profit of this bank in the first nine months was significantly increased and amounted to RSD 2 billion, but the return on assets and capital is still below the expectations of investors.