Banco Davivienda to increase float to 20%-25% by end 2011

Banco Davivienda, Colombia’s third-largest bank by assets, aims to increase its float to 20%-25% by the end of 2011 from a current 14.5%, the company’s vice president of corporate finance, Jaime Castaneda, said.

The bank launched in August Colombia’s first initial public offering since 2007, selling a 6.4% stake of 26 million shares. Additionally, minority owners in the bank secured approval to float their stake in the exchange, raising to 14.5% Davivienda’s total stake floated in the bourse.

“We think that by the end of 2011 [or] beginning of 2012, we’re going to continue with the bank’s internationalization plan and issue another stake in the company, be it on the local or on international markets,” Castaneda told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar in Chile’s capital city.

Davivienda Chief Executive Efrain Forero has said the bank will sell 24 million shares more within the next three years, possibly in New York.

(Anthony Esposito / Dow Jones Newswires)

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