The Minister for Investment, Industry and IT, Austin Gatt, has announced that the Government of Malta will be disposing of the remaining shares held in MaltaPost plc through an Initial Public Offering. A total of 11,200,000 ordinary shares, currently held by the Government of Malta and Malta Government Investments Limited, are being made available for subscription at a price of €0.50 (Lm0.21) per share.

The Minister explained that this is the fourth phase of the privatisation process, which was initiated in February 2002, where a minority of the shares were transferred to Transend Worldwide, a subsidiary of New Zealand Post. In August of 2006, Transend's shareholding was transferred to Lombard Bank Malta plc. In September 2007, Lombard Bank became the majority shareholder of MaltaPost plc after acquiring a 25% stake holding from the Government. This decision was taken in view of the need to create a strategic partner to give a new direction to MaltaPost, a partner which enjoys the confidence of the Maltese public.

This initial public offering is led by Government's declared policy that it should not be present in business ventures which can be done by the private sector. It is also providing the public with an opportunity to own a share in a sound and growing company. The Government's privatisation policy has yielded its dividends over the years. Today there are 5,000 less people who work in the Public Sector. At the same time there was an increase of 4% of the total labour force which are in the private sector.

In his presentation, Mr Joseph Said, chairman of MaltaPost, explained that the company has achieved a significant financial turnaround as shown by the results of the past 3 years. MaltaPost is Malta's leading postal services company and has one of the largest retail networks. It is the only licensed Universal Service Provider and provides a 6 days a week delivery throughout Malta and Gozo. He also referred to the shareholding Lombard Bank has in the company. He said that the bank considers its investment as a strategic partnership presenting considerable synergy potential, resulting in significant added value for all stakeholders. He said that the strategic partnership between Lombard Bank and MaltaPost provides an opportunity to expand MaltaPost's products and services and to diversify into financial services by targeting a market segment not catered for by the Bank.

A pre-placement exercise for up to a maximum of 45% of the total share offer (i.e. 5,040,000 shares) will take place on Monday the 14th of January. The remaining shares and any shares not acquired during the pre-placement will be made available during the General Public Offering which opens on Tuesday the 15th of January and closes on Friday the 18th of January or earlier in the case of over-subscription. Applications are for a minimum of 2,000 shares (€1,000 / Lm 429.30) and in multiples of 100 shares (€40 / Lm 21.47) thereafter. MaltaPost has submitted an application for its total share capital amounting to 28,000,000 shares to be admitted to the Official List of the Malta Stock Exchange.