Strong local bid for Banco de Chile

Banco de Chile’s share sale was heard to be oversubscribed on Tuesday, with a particularly strong bid coming from local investors. The share price is due to be released today. LQ Inversiones Financieras is the seller in the all-secondary deal, and offered to sell 6.7bn shares. That would cut the majority shareholder’s ownership to 51%, from 58.4%, of the firm. Banco de Chile’s American Depositary Shares — equal to 600 common shares — closed at $74.95 on Monday, down from $83.65 the day LQIF announced the sale. Citi was global coordinator, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BTG Pactual, and Deutsche Bank were bookrunners. Banco de Chile is the country’s largest lender with a 19.3% market share. It reported assets of CLP25,261bn ($50.1bn) at the end of the third quarter.