Brazil's Itau-Unibanco Increases Stake In Redecard
March 24 2009 - 7:15AM
Dow Jones News
Brazil's largest bank, Itau-Unibanco, will exercise its option
to acquire 24 million shares of local credit-card networking
services provider Redecard SA (RDCD3.BR) through a secondary offer
on the Brazilian Stock Exchange, or Bovespa, Redecard said late
Monday in a statement.
Earlier this month, Citigroup Inc. (C) announced its plan to
sell at least 82 million of its shares in Redecard. Citigroup also
said it could increase the offer through an extra lot of shares,
selling a total of 106.7 million shares.
The price of the shares under the offer will be set after the
conclusion of the bookbuilding period, the company said.
Redecard is controlled jointly by Brazilian banking giant
Itau-Unibanco and Citigroup. Currently, Itau-Unibanco has a
combined 46.42% stake in Redecard, while Citigroup has a 17%
stake.
Itau-Unibanco was formed late last year by the merger of Itau
(ITU), at that time Brazil's third-largest bank, and Unibanco
(UBB), at that time the country's fourth-largest bank. The new
merged bank is Brazil's largest financial institution. Itau and
Unibanco shares still trade separately but will be unified into a
single new share March 31.
Citigroup, through its Citibank division, has total of 114.4
million Redecard's shares, according to the prospectus of the
offer. Citigroup is the lead coordinator of the operation.
The shares under the offer are set to begin trading
Thursday.
-By Rogerio Jelmayer, Dow Jones Newswires; 5511-2847-4521;
rogerio.jelmayer@dowjones.com