Who Owns Pakistan - Yimg

caretaker govt. to recover Rs 1,500 million from the LPG companies during its
three month tenure.
G: UBL Privatization Bid
In September 91, Chairman, Privatization Commission, Saeed Qadir has
speculated in an interview with Sabih uddin Ghausi of Daily DAWN that UBL
could fetch a price of Rs150 per share, against Rs 70 of ABL and Rs 54 of MCB
but in 1996 it was sold to a dubious group for Rs 15 per share. Such a big fall in
such a short time could happen only through a determined effort by the
controllers of the bank to bankrupt it before its privatization. That a sustained
effort was made by the govt. to bankrupt the bank before its privatization is also
evident from the annual balance sheets of the bank.
UBL earned Rs 236 million profit in 1991, Rs 258 million in 1992 and Rs 275 in
1993 which went down to Rs 59 million in 1994 and gave a loss of Rs 720 million
in 1995. During three years of Benazir govt. overdue advances jumped from Rs
12 billion to Rs 18 billion and 30 loans worth Rs 2 billion were rescheduled,
scores of loans were written off.
In 1996 UBL had 3,000 ghost workers, Rs 700 million per annum was being
spent on the union whose office bearers were in possession of 190 bank
vehicles. The employees of the bank had extracted unrecoverable loans worth
Rs 800 million. The bad loans amounted to Rs 17 billion (25% of all advances)
and the bank was working with a net negative worth of Rs 12 billion. It was for
this reason that Consultant Credit Lyonnais, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and
Khalid Majid Hussan Shah Rehman had recommended " that the bank can not
be sold without the govt. first pumping in at least Rs 15 billion to make it a viable
operation."
Without taking into consideration the recommendation of Credit Lyonnais, the
Privatization Commission decided to dispose of UBL on " As is, where is basis",
and invited bids on Oct 6,1995. Eight bids were received. Six were rejected on
the ground that the bidders did not have the required capital worth of Rs 1,500
million or were defaulting on loans. Surprisingly those who were disqualified
included Saigols, Atlas-Bank of Tokyo and a consortium of Crescent and Dewan
groups. The Crescent-Deewan joint bid was rejected on the ground that they
were defaulting in the payment of a loan obligation.
After a charade of negotiations during which Chairman of the Privatization
Commission made a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, the bid of dubious Basharahill
was accepted at Rs 15.30 per share. However the deal had to be called off when
it was found out that even the earnest money of Rs 300 million was made
available by Muslim Commercial Bank and was deposited by Sikandar Jatoi.
49