Bank of Valletta is to offer 105,000,000 new ordinary shares to its existing shareholders on the basis of a ratio of one new ordinary share for every four ordinary shares held at an offer price of €1.43 per new ordinary share.

Existing shareholders may assign part or all of their rights to third parties. Employees and other investors may apply for any new shares not taken up by either existing shareholders or their assignees.

All categories of investors may apply for the new shares by December 6, through BOV branches and other authorised financial intermediaries).

BOV will not be providing investment advice or discretionary investment management services in relation to the new ordinary shares but will be accepting forms from investors on an ‘execution-only’ basis.

Mario Mallia,CEO, said, this was a very important milestone for the BOV Group. "The new shares to be issued will enable the bank to further strengthen its common equity tier 1 (CET1) capital. This would mean that the bank will be in a better position to implement its strategic initiatives and to have the necessary capital buffers required to take these forward. The proceeds from the rights issue will also be used by the bank to meet its general funding purposes.”

The prospectus may be obtained from BOV branches and other authorised financial intermediaries. It may also be downloaded from the website of BOV (www.bov.com).