NORDBANKEN TO AUCTION ITS FERMENTA SHARES

  Sweden's &lt;Nordbanken> banking group
  said it would sell the 4.2 mln B free shares deposited as loan
  collateral by Fermenta AB's &lt;FRMS.ST> founder and former chief
  executive Refaat el-Sayed and it planned to buy them up itself.
      The bank said the sale - by public auction on March 16 --
  was because of a debtor's inability to repay an overdue loan.
      The B free shares closed at 16.50 crowns on the bourse's
  unofficial list -- down from a peak of 300 in January 1986.
  Nordbanken said it did not exclude accepting a suitable bid for
  the shares although it expected to buy them back itself.
      The statement said the sale did not represent any
  withdrawal from Nordbanken's undertakings towards the Fermenta
  group and that it had been sanctioned by the other main
  shareholders.
      Nordbanken is Fermenta's third largest creditor with loans
  of 155 mln crowns. It was one of the four Swedish banks which
  last month agreed to advance the group 110 mln crowns to solve
  its immediate liquidity problems. Together with two other main
  shareholders, it also advanced Fermenta an additional 65 mln
  crowns until a new equity issue could be made.
      Fermenta is due to hold an extraordinary shareholders'
  meeting on Tuesday to approve the planned equity issue.
      Nordbanken had to make a provision against a 200 mln crown
  loan to el-Sayed in its 1986 results.
      Fermenta's new management originally hoped to raise 160 mln
  crowns through the new one for four rights issue and an extra
  170 mln from an issue to Nordbanken, another major creditor and
  shareholder &lt;Gotabanken> and the group's new majority owner
  &lt;Industrivarden AB>.
      The share price was to be 20 crowns. But there has been
  doubt over the plans since the stock fell below this level this
  week after Fermenta's former chairman Kjell Brandstrom said the
  company was in a much worse state than he thought.
  

