YEREVAN, January 13. /ARKA/. The Yerevan-based Unibank said today it has applied for listing of its ordinary registered shares at NASDAQ OMX Armenia stock exchange’s secondary (B) platform. It said this process will begin the circulation of its shares at the stock exchange.

Unibank is the first bank in Armenia to have auctioned its shares through an IPO at NASDAQ OMX Armenia.

To qualify for the listing the bank has to meet a number of requirements. Under one of them the proportion of freely tradable shares should be at least 10%.

On December 24 Unibank successfully completed its first placement of ordinary nominal shares (UNIB) through an IPO at NASDAQ OMX Armenia stock exchange. The IPO was conducted as a standard open auction with a total of 186 transactions effected and 10,672,471 shares placed which raised 2,454,668,330 drams. The price of a share with the face value of 100 drams grew to 230 drams, it said.

The decision to conduct an IPO was prompted by Unibank’s ambition to reach a new development level and become a people’s bank, according to the press release. The annual Mercury Awards recognized Unibank as the winner in the nomination of People’s Bank,’ the press release says.
Today Unibank t runs 45 branches and 50 promo points providing services to over 300,000 customers.

In the first 9 months of 2015 Unibank paid a total of 1.7 billion drams in taxes occupying 53rd position in the list of the 1000 largest corporate taxpayers.

In 2015 December Moody’s Investors Service has affirmed Unibank’s baseline credit assessment (BCA) of b3, adjusted BCA of b3, counterparty risk assessment of B1(cr)NP(cr) and B2/NP bank deposit ratings saying also its outlook remains stable.

Unibank was founded in October 2001. In 2002 it introduced Unistream system. Its only shareholder is Glover Holding LTD. In 2015 the Bank was reorganized into an open joint stock company. The bank’s assets at the end of September 2015 stood at 156 billion drams; the liabilities – at 135.3 billion drams; the capital was worth 20.7 billion drams. Its credit investments stood at 107. 6 billion drams. In the first 9 months of 2015 Unibank earned 761.3 million drams in net profit. ($ 1 - 483, 67 drams). -0-