Saudi Arabia's government will sell a 15-percent stake in National Commercial Bank (NCB) , the country's largest lender by assets, in an initial public offering, Finance Minister Ibrahim al Assaf was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Assaf said the IPO file would be submitted to the market regulator in the third quarter of this year, state news agency SPA reported. Sovereign fund Public Investment Fund will be the seller.

The share sale will be the kingdom's first bank IPO since 2008 and is likely to be a big-ticket deal as NCB has assets of $100.6 billion and made a net profit of $2.1 billion last year.

NCB owns 90.71 percent of investment firm NCB Capital and has a 66.27 percent stake in Turkiye Finans Katilim Bankasi, an Islamic bank in Turkey. -Reuters