Government says the Zambia National Commercial Bank, ZANACO, has been sold at an offer price of US$8.25 million to Rabo Bank of Netherlands.
Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry, Kenneth Konga, has however, stated that the actual sale price of the bank would be known after three months at the completion of the evaluation of assets.
Mr. Konga told Parliament today that in accordance with the sale and purchase agreement between government and Rabo bank, 10 per cent of the offer price was received on January 22nd this year while the remainder was received on April 3rd .
He said in a ministerial statement delivered in parliament today that the money arising from the sale has been deposited in the current corporate account of ZANACO, account number 00304100000047.
He disclosed that Rabo Bank’s gross bid on net assets of the bank as at 31st December 2004, was at US$10 million, adding that government would within 90 days appoint an independent consultant to evaluate the net asset value of the bank.
ZANACO’s net assets as at December 31st 2004 stood at US$20.5 million.
The ZANACO’s 49 per cent shares have been sold to Rabo Financial Institutions Development, RFID, a subsidiary of Rabobank.
RFID on Tuesday this week, in accordance with the sale and purchase agreement between the Zambian government and the bank, took over the management and operations of ZANACO after the completion of the sale.
Mr. Konga disclosed that so far US$665, 000 have been paid to Price Water House consultants and DLA Paper Royd for consultancy work.
The minister, further, disclosed that Rabo bank has committed itself to increase the number of rural ZANACO branches by 20 per cent and maintain them for a period of not less 10 years.
He, however, said Rabo bank has been allowed to move the existing rural branches within the radius of five kilometres, if necessary.
He assured Zambians that Rabo bank has also agreed to retain all workers but stated that any retrenchment for unionised workers would be done in accordance with the collective agreement on labour laws.
Mr. Konga revealed that the bank has also brought only three expetriates workers that include the Managing Director, Managers for Change and Risk respectively.
He said government was satisfied that the Nertherlands’ bank would reposition ZANACO as an agricultural financial provider and contribute to the wealth creation of Zambia.
The minister said Rabobank’s acquisation of 49 per cent and the impending government’s offloading of 25. 8 percent shares on the Lusaka Stock Exchange, LuSe, marks a milestone in the privitisation programme under the Zambia Development Agency, ZDA.
He further assured the house that government expects the long term partnership with the bank to yield susstainable benefits for the country.
He said all the information on the sale of the bank would in 24 hours be availed on the www.zpa.org.zm website.
ZANIS
nonsense, we are not interested in the offer price.how i wish the army could take over and nationalise everthing. Am tired of these MMD guys who have managed to sell Zambia.What is left of Zambia?
sos pls.history has proved that a white man hates a black man.allow the white guys to set up businesses and not to take over our remains.
i’m surprised that half of Zanaco sold for only $8.25m. One would think that the building on Cairo Road alone is worth about that much!
Its a shame, Konga must know that DBZ must have repositioned to offer agricultural development, in any case how do you sign an agreement , accept payment and then wait for valuation of assets ? What was the use of PWC? Didnt govt know that valuation must have been done first to form the basis of negotiations? So what were they using to bargain.Konga and your group you are just another bunch of crooks , just like those who ring fenced ZCCM and managed to sell it for a song. What is $8m to the government treasury?Pocket change?HQ on cairo Road alone is worth more than that, houses in Rhodes park today are being sold for K500m, if you extrapolate in comparison with Zanaco HQ does it make sense to you Konga and Company?Its an insult to the Zambian people indeed.On the remaning assets let the people of Zambia decide which way will be ideal.
Even people like Chilumba they know how foolsh MMD govt would be when selling state properties. Konga you accepted to limit your thinking capacity and got confused over the offer price of $8.25 million. The amount is nothing at all when you think in terms of the entire country and not Lusaka only. Every man has a price but for the common Zambian people is priceless. We need a new govt to flush out these recycled politicians only think about themselves, revege, and having ‘I don’t care attitude’. Let Zambia be for real Zambins.
Sam you will be my Finance Minister in my govt.I promise you this , just wait for these recycled politicians to finish their terms.We need a new crop of leaders
Zambian’s should learn that we are now in a Global world where Mergers and Arquisitions are now the order of business transactions of today. Barclays Bank was just in negotiations with ABN AMRO of Netherlands. Please for Gods sake, Zambians you have failed to manage your own companies and want to blame the foreigners. Only Failures blame other people for their failures. Stand Up and Dont Blame Anyone.
I have attached the link below to give you more information about world financial news.
Mind that Africa has been forgotten in most of the world trades. This explains why you do not have an active stock exchange.
http://www.financemarkets.co.uk/2007/03/19/barclays-bank-to-announce-plans-for-abn-amro-talks/
Kayata, you sound like you were last in Zambia during the KK days. Things have really changed my dear. We have an active stock exchange called LUSE. For your own information it was Africa’s best performing index in 2005.
I think people are largely disgusted about the price. It’s just too low. DO you mean to tell me that Zambians can’t come up with $8.5 million. Come on, we are not that poor, we had a GDP of $10 billion dollars last year.
Kayata, visit home once in a while ..don’t wait to be like “A PHIRI ANA BWELE KU CHOKA KU WALALE”
Kayata, you seem to miss the point under discussion, today you will be amazed that transaction between ABN AMRO and Barclays might not even materialised because of the current U.S. Justice Department probe into past money transfers at ABN AMRO Holding NV and this is our main concern ‘corrupt’ tendencies by these investors, look at what happened at Ramcoz,Supreme furnishers,United Bank, KCM plus endless list of crooks etc is this good development to you? Is this how your understanding of mergers and Acquistion must proceed ?Wake up Kayata and dont just look at theories , be practical, the principle of privatisation is good but only in a palce where there is well developed systems, independent judicial systems, deregulation,strong monitoring and control and not under the prevailing conditions Zambia is in today, mind you ABN AMRO is dutch , the buyers of Zanaco are Dutch, birds of the same feathers flock together, just watch and see
Wena and Ngosa, i really appreciate your advice, to learn that we have an active stock exchange is a step forward ofcourse, outbeating Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa and Egypt.
http://www.luse.co.zm
http://www.gse.com.gh
I must accept that i missed the point in the first place,it been the sale price of Zanaco at US$8m.
Ofcourse the amount is little,but however, we have not looked at the basis of the sale,how much investments is zanaco remaining with, are it’s building’s rented, how much debt it is still owing, what we have just been given is the sale price.
Zanaco could have sold it’s building’s separately.
8.26 MILLION LESS THAT NBA[USA]PLAYER GETS A YEAR.
WHY SALE ZANACO AND DEPOSITE THE MONEY IN ZANACO ACCOUNT AGAIN,,,SO STUPID MMD.
Stupid MMD govt, when are you going to privitise water?
Kataya its not the matter of you missing the point but you reacted like Chiluba by considering what IMF and WB preach to be gospel truth. The economical formula that can make wonders in Brazil can not do so in other countries. Kataya please read the all document before making comments. All I can tell you, things seem like jumping from frying pan straight into fire. The foolish MMD govt is hoping against hope that the peasant farmers in rural areas will double their produce with so called investors.That is stupid thinking. Go to Zambia and see how people are using stones to breaking stones along lusaka-Kafue rd. I love Zambia, one day it will come to its vibrany of 1970s.
Hey guys has any one got the true reflection on the performance of the LUSE currently otherwise we ll be talking about stale information of 2005, the world is moving, we might aswell start grooming football players as a nation and list them on the LUSE or export them for our DGP. How much was Mbesuma sold for? Whats the % difference with the sale of ZANANCO? or maybe 5 collins’
LUSE being voted the best Index in Africa sounds like a ton of success. Frankly, I don’t think so as long as our industries are still non-productive or are operating at less than 30% productive capacity. The performance of the index must reflect the performance or non-performance of these companies. Fortunately for you Zambians, only a few companies are listed on LUSE and those are the companies driving the Index right now. On the sale of ZANACO, I agree this deal has been undervalued,we could have gotten a better deal. Don’t you see Rabobank has made a forecast into Zambia’s business potential with all the new mines openning up. If our government really cared, someone should have read into this deal and either proposed a merger(not out-right buy-out) or simply empowered ZANACO management to develop sound structures to capture the business potential.Why can’t somebody ever think so far off. ZANACO may have debts, but that is no reason to sell it.
The sale of Zanaco as stated in the press release is based on the net value of Zanaco as at 31st December 2004 which is almost 3 years ago. It has also been agreed that after the completion of the negotiations, an Independent Auditor will value Zanaco at completion of the sale.
I think the sale of Zanaco is a good relief to the people of Zambia, as we have observed Politicians use these companies for political and self gain. We should also await the sale of Zesco and Zamtel. And there is 25% of the GRZ shares to be offered to the public, this gives us the opportunity to own part of Zanaco, and make the LUSE a real active stock exchange.
Kayata,I still stand to differ with your insistence that its a good thing to sell Zanaco.Ownership change is not any means to improve anything. China is a very good example to go by,the the strategy it used is what Zambia must have adopted to privatise these SOEs.It boosted performance by changing the internal governance of SOEs, improved the market environment in which they operated and didnot proceed to sale them but leased them out with the Manager paying the state as fixed proportion of the firms profit, and to do this it employed a State owned Management companies to restructure and majority but with us everything was at rapid response even those companies that had life were put up for sale,todate no savings were realised from this excercise purely because of crookedness by the proponents.Core functonal analysis was not adequately done and this resulted in alot of flaws during the process.How can a bank be behind in producing statutory accounts?Who are the Auditors.Its nonsense
Ngosa, i think there are two things at play in the Zambian environment: lack of reality to entrust indigenous business persons to take hold of the economy on the one hand, and gross (grotesque) political groping and throttling of all aspects of life that becomes visible enough to empower the indigenous peoples.
kataya, you just said one thing and its subset. You seem to have missed the vital point over the sale of ZANACO. Its sad to have people like you who still think privitisation in Third World countires can rejuvenate their economy and bring dignity to the people. Come on Kataya, this is not true and it’s like making one step ahead and three steps backwards. Please go to Copperbelt see how Mopani is tapping profits from ZambiaN soil and give peanuts to its workers. ” The land is theirs but money is ours” This is how is dinite privitisation. Kataya, jump out from the slumber and become a real Zambian.
Kayata , you must know that time to think about privatisation is long gone, it has not helped any person in Zambia if anything it has messed the majority of our people.One such disaster is the wiping away of the jobs that existed in the rural area and non of these investors are willing to invest there because of corporate greed ,they are only interested in urban profits with no social responsibility whatsoever, You must have last visited Zambia in 1980 and has read widely about fictious privatisation which has failed to yield any tangible results in Zambia.Its time we came up with home grown policies, which people like you must offer than just talking about impossibilities.Owning a share doesnot give u the right to make decisions,you will continue walloping in abject poverty whilst those dutch chaps ship billions of profits to develop Holland.KCM boss is busy building empires in India and after his tax holiday,he’ll pack and go and leave you Kayata still struggling in diaspora.Shame
Colleagues, it is encouraging to have fellow patriot’s like you. But, i think we all know that the privatisation process was wrongly and hurriedly done, as Ngosa mentioned, and to make matters worse there was crookedness involved. I believe the best minds are not in Government, and if they were, the businesses would hire them. Ngosa, if owning a share in a company does not give me the right to make decisions, then what will be my role as a shareholder? Colleagues, we all know how inefficient govt bodies are, time for parastatals are long gone.
Theory and practice in Zambia are not compatible , Kayaka, to me you appear to have left Zambia alongtime ago.Theoretically owning a share means you have a say in the running of the affairs of the company.How many of the that bought shares in chilanga Cement,Zambia breweries,etc have had their voices heard, Zam brew has got all white management with only one black on board of directors who is Chitalu, is this in your prudent thinking a good sign of progression? Privatisation is no panacea to economic woes its just ‘one’of the many policies to reform an economy it doesnot come as a single package.Today IMF is encouraging us to renegotiate the mining contracts,laughed at Zambia’s high level of poverty & unemployment,reduced life expactancy,but were they not the same people who were drafting those by the way contracts?Its this neo colonialism in form economic reform that we dont want.Even in the UK where privatisation was started by Maggie, alot of caution was applied.
contd,an example is when BritishTransport was sold to a company which went burst ,the govt renationalised the company improved on it and then looked for other investors but despite the private participation the transport sector is still govt controlled with great effeciency.You cannot detach yourselves from running the economy and put innocent lives at stake.Privatisation’s main objective is the fiscal benefit the citizens must enjoy and not the siphoning of profits.Kayata go to Luanshya , pass thru Rac rectreational centre its no diffrent from Iraq,is this what private ownership must bring.Do you know that ESkom in RSA is still govt? BT in UK is govt , common Kayaka dont trivialise matters,all we need is private partnership investment than the route we took and above all community empowerment is what we need to put Zambia on track, we still lack systems under which we can operate a free market economy, its not just feasible,look at the Vulture Fund judgement it will give u a clue
Francis, i think you know that BT in UK is no longer a parastatal.and Francis what do you explain of Stagecoach, FirstGroup,Arriva etc of their performance and service to the public. I think you still know that Network Rail has not been privatised,for reasons you business administrators know best.
There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.
kayata, i think you do not have your facts right. Please do some research then you can comment. Was ZANACO making losses. Have you ever heard of IMF conditionalities. You cannot talk about mergers taking place in developed countries, amd want them same to happen in LDCs
This is total nonsence from these so called Zambians abroad. i think being in diaspora has really blinded you, or may be you have been brainwashed or something. Don’t pretend to have an understanding of what is obtaining in our country when you are not even here. Let the Zambians who still live in zambia and witnessing the damage being caused to our resource rich country do the talking.
Just wait and see,when everything is sold out.The white man will tell them to start selling there own people,I’m afraid i see slavery comming back.
dCQlYm comment1 ,
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