American private equity investment firm JC Flowers is set to sell most of its stake in Japanese lender Shinsei Bank.
The move will also see JC Flowers CEO J Christopher Flowers sell his personal stake and step down from the Shinsei Bank board.
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The American firm owned 21.37% of Shinsei’s outstanding shares. It plans to sell around 17.61% of holding to reduce its stake to around 3.8%.
Overall, it will sell around 45.6 million shares. The share price will be set later this month; however, it carries a combined value of around $700m, according to the latest closing price.
JC Flowers did not state any reason for the decision.
The sale of shares will be handled by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Nomura Holdings.
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By GlobalDataIn 2000, JC Flowers partnered with Ripplewood to acquire the struggling Shinsei’s predecessor Long-Term Credit Bank.
It was the first Japanese lender to be owned by foreign investors, reported Reuters.
After JC Flowers divests its stake, the Japanese government is expected to become the largest shareholder of the Shinsei Bank.
Headquartered in Tokyo, Shinsei Bank has total assets of JPY9,571.1bn ($90.51bn). It has three main business segments- retail banking, institutional banking and consumer/commercial finance.
In April this year, J C Flowers-owned First Bank agreed to acquire Bank Leumi Romania.
Bank Leumi Romania operates 15 branch offices and employs 200 banking professionals. It had more than €250m in assets, at the end of 2018.
