Tomato Specialized Bank, Cambodia’s smallest bank, has sold a majority stake to South Korea’s KB Kookmin Card Co for $10.8 million, the culmination of a long search for a buyer after its majority shareholder filed for bankruptcy in 2012.
The state-run Korea Deposit Insurance Corp (KDIC), which took over after risky investments in real estate bankrupted the bank’s previous owners in 2012, announced on Thursday it had sold the entirety of its stake in the bank. “KDIC has clearly done a good job cleaning up the bank, and it looks like they’ve got a price that is somewhere near book value,” said Stephen Higgins, managing partner at Mekong Strategic Partners.
“You would only buy this bank if you were planning on turning it into something else, as it is simply too small otherwise,” he added. KB Kookmin Card Co will take a 90 percent stake in the company, while Indochina Bank will hold the remaining 10 percent, according to South Korean news outlet Pulse.
