A consortium of private equity funds have sought the disintegration of private bank Kleinwort Benson. The Belgium based bank has been sought to be broken up for its recent poor share performance and management's 'erratic' strategy.
The consortium has a 4% shareholdings in the bank and is led by Equilibria Capital Management from Geneva. The privater equity firm is seeking action from RHJ International (RHJI) to return more than Eur200 million or US$258.78 in cash to its shareholders. It also sought the break up of the bank, according to a statement released by the fund manager,
RHJI had responded by saying that the book value as of March 2012 was pegged at Eur7.20 per share. Since then, the share price has fallen to nearly half, at Eur3.98 per share. This value is down almost one quarter in the past couple of years.
The shareholder group is asking that RHIJ to stop any corporate activity, such as further acquisitions. One of the plans is to purchase the BHF-Bank unit of Deutshche Bank AG.
According to Equilibria Capital co-founder Daniel Tafur, "They focus on the core business which is Kleinwort Benson, rather than hunting another bank when they don't have enough cash to do it on their own."
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