MADRID: Spain's state-owned bank Bankia, which was nationalised in 2012 to save it from collapse, said Wednesday it would sell its stake of 4.94 percent in Spanish utility Iberdrola.
The stocks, one of Bankia's last remaining corporate stakes, are worth about 1.6 billion euros ($2.2 billion) at Ibedrola's closing price of 5.002 euros a share.
The operation will be carried out through an accelerated book-building process, which involves offering shares in a short time period with little or no marketing, Bankia said in a statement.
UBS and Citigroup will act as joint bookrunners and the operation will last no longer than one day, the statement added.
Bankia has already sold stakes worth 2.4 billion euros in several groups, including 12 percent of Spanish insurer Mapfre for 979.4 million euros and 12.09 percent of International Airlines Group, which owns British Airways and Iberia, for 675 million euros.
Spain launched the privatisation of Bankia in February with the sale of a 7.5 percent stake for 1.3 billion euros. Most of the buyers were foreign investors.
The sale of the stake lowered the Spanish state's holding in Bankia to about 61 percent.
Bankia became the symbol of Spain's financial crisis when it lost more than 19 billion euros in 2012, which pushed Madrid to ask its eurozone partners for 41 billion euros in rescue loans to shore up the entire banking system.
Under the terms of the European Union's 2012 bailout, the Spanish government has until 2017 to sell its stake in Bankia.
Spain's largest state-owned bank in February reported a net profit of 509 million euros for 2013 and announced it had wrapped up a painful restructuring shutting more than 1,000 branches and shedding thousands of staff two years early.
The lender, which was born in 2010 from the merger of seven troubled savings banks, was hit hard by the sliding value of assets it had accumulated during Spain's 10-year property bubble, which burst in 2008.
After listing on the Madrid stock exchange with great fanfare in July 2011, Bankia had to be nationalised less than a year later to save it from collapse as bad loans and losses spiralled.
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