Satabank liquidators declare bank solvent after €75 million disbursement

Shuttered Maltese bank Satabank has been fully liquidated and declared solvent in an announcement by controller Dr. Richard Galea Debono.

The announcement, published in the government gazette on Monday, showed that following the write-off of all assets and liabilities, the company’s net worth had increased to €6,194,897 from €251,749 on 31 January, when Galea Debono was appointed controller.

“There are enough funds to pay all creditors in full and leaving a surplus to be returned to the shareholders,” the statement read.

The ascertainment of liabilities presented the greatest challenge, according to the statement, with quite a large amount of unidentified liabilities labelled as “other liabilities”. 

“There was no indication to whom these amounts were due. In addition, the deposit balances of the various services provided by the company did not agree with the respective control accounts and none of the correspondent company accounts in the ledger had been reconciled to the actual company balances,” the statement read.

An exercise involving the reconciliation of the company’s receipts and payments against the records of the major payment European platforms was carried out, and this resulted in the writing off of approximately 16,000 customer accounts.

“Immediate steps were taken to liquidate and collect investments and close off a number of correspondent company accounts.  Steps were taken to collect refunds due to the company such as VAT and income tax,” Galea Debono said.

During the period ended 31 January 2023 collections amount to €3,228,684. In the period expenses till 31 January 2023 totalled €3,929,856.

Statements show the amount of €75,822,655 is available for distribution. The privileged and trade and deposit creditors will be paid in full. After settlement of these liabilities the sum of €5,654,833 will be available for distribution to the shareholders.

The holders of the existing 13,575,000 Ordinary shares of €1 each in issue will receive the amount of €0.46 for each ordinary share of €1.