YEREVAN, November 28. /ARKA/. The Armenia-based Unibank said today it begins a new issuance of shares to be carried out through NASDAQ OMX Armenia stock exchange. Overall, the bank plans to place 17.4 million ordinary shares with the total offering price of about 4 billion drams. The face value of one share is 100 drams, the placement price is 230 drams and the minimum package of shares available for purchase is worth one million drams.

The prospectus of the issue, containing a brief description of the bank's activities, its financial standing, the offered shares and potential risks was published by Unibank on the 25th of November 2016. Investors may buy the paper version of the prospectus at the head office of the bank or its branches. The electronic version is available at www.unibank.am and corp.unibank.am. Armenbrok firm is chosen to act as market maker, Unibank said.

According to a Unibank’s press release, issuing of shares is part of its strategy of becoming a popular bank by involving the public in its management, thereby making the process more efficient and transparent.

As a public company, and having a large number of private shareholders, Unibank attaches great importance to the rights of minority shareholders and protection of their interests. In this connection, Unibank focuses on improving corporate governance, as well as ensuring the availability of information to the public and transparency.

Unibank is the first Armenia-based bank, whose shares were included in the main list (A) of NASDAQ OMX Armenia, which was made possible thanks to an increase in the proportion of shares held by the public.

The Yerevan-based bank’s assets at the end of the third quarter stood at about 175 billion drams and the liabilities – at 143 billion drams. The bank’s total capital exceeded 31 billion drams, having surged by 41% from the same time span of last year. Since the beginning of the year the bank earned 622.6 million drams in profit.

Unibank was founded in October 2001. In 2002 it introduced Unistream system. In 2015 the bank was reorganized to an open joint stock company. Some 93.5% of its shares are held by Ripatonso Holding LTD ($1 – 479.72 drams). -0-