GSIS tries anew to sell stake in thrift bank

State-run pension fund Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) is selling its majority stake in thrift bank GSIS Family Bank, an invitation to bid showed.

The invitation to bid published today showed GSIS planned to sell 99.55 percent of its total outstanding shares in the bank formerly known as Comsavings Bank, of which 99.36 percent are common shares and 0.19 percent are preferred “A” shares.

“The sale of the above shares shall be subject to the condition that the remaining shares of the GSIS Family Bank belonging to private stockholders represented by heirs of Renato P. Dragon through Patricia Angeli D. Nubla, shall likewise be sold to the same buyer of GSIS shares through a separate negotiation and agreement with said private stockholders,” the invitation to bid read.

“This condition is in compliance with the court order dated 17 October 2014 issued by Branch 58, Regional Trial Court, Makati City, approving the conditional consent dated 8 October 2014 in Civil Case No. 03-433,” it added.

The introductory pre-bid conference is scheduled on April 16, while the submission of a letter of intent to participate in the bidding will start on April 10 and end on May 11.

Another pre-bid conference will be held on April 29, before the submission of the bid proposals in the morning of May 25, immediately after which the bids will be opened.

The Development Bank of the Philippines, which advised the GSIS when it first planned to sell the thrift bank in 2011, had pegged the end-2014 value of GSIS Family Bank at as much as P670 million, GSIS president and general manager Robert G. Vergara said last February.

According to Vergara, the bank has 22 branches, mostly outside Metro Manila.

Vergara had said that the incentives reinstated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to the prospective buyer of GSIS Family Bank would “hopefully be attractive and valuable,” as the package of perks include being allowed to open branches in restricted areas, upgrading the thrift/savings bank into a commercial bank, and allowing the bank to continue accepting deposits from GSIS. Ben O. de Vera