ZAGREB: CITY ASSEMBLY SELLS ZAGREBACKA BANKA SHARES

ZAGREB, April 15 (Hina) - The Zagreb City Assembly accepted at a special session on Monday an offer to sell 39,615 shares in Zagrebacka Banka (ZABA) to UniCredito Italiano SpA at a price of US$238.57 per share. The Assembly today also adopted a decision to take a 250-million-kuna loan from ZABA. #L# Zagreb Mayor Vlasta Pavic said that the session had not been scheduled, but was convened instead due to the urgency of the decision to be made as today was the deadline for the sale of ZABA shares. The head of the City Office for Finances, Slavko Kojic, stressed that the decision to sell ZABA shares was made at a previous session of the Assembly, when a revised budget for 2001 was adopted but, he said, "the deal did not go through as the purchaser was not buying shares at the time". Kojic advised that 23 city companies that have a little more than 60,000 shares in ZABA (worth around 120 million kuna), should also sell their shares. It was recommended that institutions owned by the City of Zagreb could sell their shares, too. Asked by journalists if these sales had anything to do with the Rijecka Banka affair, Kojic energetically denounced any such thing, stressing that this decision was adopted in October, but was being realised only now. The money collected from the sale of ZABA shares will be used exclusively for capital building investments and the purchase of real estate, in keeping with the principle that assets should be exchanged for assets, Kojic said. He said that the 39,615 shares sold made up less than one percent of ZABA's capital stock. (hina) sp rml