Dhaka, August 28 :

Bangladesh will sell its fourth largest lender to a Saudi prince who has offered $330 million for 67.5 per cent of Rupali Bank, the head of the country’s privatisation commission said Monday.

Prince Bandar Bin Mohammad Bin Abdul Rahman’s offer for the state-owned bank beat out six other bidders, Privatisation Commission Chairman Enam Ahmed Chowdhury told AFP. “The commission will approve the bid today (Monday) and we will sign the sale agreement by next month,” Chowdhury said.

News of the Rupali sale saw its share price jump to 1,950 taka ($27), a rise of nearly 40 per cent on Sunday’s price, in early trading on the Dhaka stock exchange Monday.

Rupali, with more than 500 branches across the south Asian country and more than 5,000 employees, desperately needs an injection of funds because a large numbers of borrowers have defaulted, Chowdhury said. Rupali, one of four state-run commercial banks in Bangladesh, has bad debts listed at 7.72 billion taka ($128 million), according to the government.

Chowdhury said the Saudi team would inject five billion dollars into the bank.

The other bidders included J J Finance of Britain, Sabre Capital and Muscat Bank of Oman, Maa International of Malaysia and two domestic firms. The government put Rupali Bank up for sale under an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement.

The IMF had delayed disbursement of a 70 million dollar soft loan to the government after it failed to launch a privatisation process early last year. Bangladesh is one of the world’s poorest countries and nearly half its 140 million population live on less than a dollar a day.