KATHMANDU, JANUARY 14

Ther proposed merger of Himalayan Bank Limited (HBL) and Nepal Investment Bank Limited (NIB) has halted as the former's shareholders rejected the proposal, on Friday.

The actualisation of the merger between the two would have made it the biggest commerical bank in the history of the Nepali banking industry in terms of paid-up capital.

However, the plan suffered a setback following HBL's shareholders' reluctance to go into a merger.

The Due Diligence Audit (DDA) had suggested a swap ratio of 1: 1 for the merger between Himalayan Bank and Nepal Investment Bank Limited.

As the banks had already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to go into a merger, which had officially paved the way to complete formalities before the process of the start of joint operation, the exchange had halted the trading of Nepal Investment Bank Ltd. (NIB) and Himalayan Bank Ltd. (HBL) in the share market.

The last traded price as of 13th May 2021, of NIB had stood at Rs 460 and of HBL Rs 484 per share.

Post the now-halted merger, the institutions would have operated jointly under the name of 'Himalayan and Nepal Investment Bank Ltd.'.

The proposal to merge the two large 'A category' commercial banks had been announced in May of 2021.

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