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REUTERS NEWS
Mexico's Bancrecer calls
for pension fund bids
MEXICO CITY, June 11 (Reuters) -
Mexican bank Bancrecer on Monday called for bids for the sale of its
47.5 percent stake in the Bancrecer-Dresdner pension fund, setting a
June 26 deadline for interested parties to hand in their best
offers.
The
pension fund is being sold separately from the Bancrecer bank, which
was shored up and recapitalized by bank deposit guarantee agency
IPAB after the bank collapsed and was taken over by the government
in 1999.
German
financial giant Dresdner-Allianz (DRSDn.DE) (ALVG.DE) has a 49
percent stake and an option to buy another 3.5 percent the pension
fund.
Bancrecer
did not say whether Dresdner-Allianz would exercise that option.
The
pension fund has more than 660,000 account holders and nearly $600
million in assets under management.
IPAB is
expected to sell the bank, which has had some $11 billion pumped
into it to restore it to financial health, by the end of the year.
Bancrecer,
like many Mexican banks, was burdened with debts after a December
1994 peso crash sent interest rates soaring over 100 percent and
caused millions of debtors to default.
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