The Cabinet yesterday approved a shortlist of four bidders for the state’s 60% stake in KB. The lucky four are Hypovereinsbank, UniCredito, Societe General and Credit Agricole. These names have been mentioned previously and are not surprising. The due-diligence process will begin now, with preliminary bids due at the end of January, 2001. This is positive news in that the government moved fast to approve the shortlist and the privatization is on schedule. Despite KB’s 9.4% gain yesterday, the current price (CZK 791.50) is, in our view, still attractive, in light of our twelve-month target price of CZK 955.
(Ondřej Daťka)