“It’ll be completed in the near future,” Nanopoulos told shareholders at a meeting in Athens today. The sale will help boost the lender’s capital adequacy ratio by 150 basis points this year, he said.
Intesa Sanpaolo SpA on Nov. 25 said it submitted an offer for the unit, while Raiffeisen Bank International AG, eastern Europe’s third-biggest lender, last month confirmed it had bid. Raiffeisen had no immediate comment when called by Bloomberg News today. An Intesa official declined to comment when reached by telephone.
Greece’s Eurobank, which is selling the unit to boost capital, received three bids, each worth between $600 million and $800 million, the Financial Times reported on Nov. 12.
Polbank may be worth 900 million euros ($1.16 billion) to 1.2 billion euros, Credit Suisse analyst Niall O’Connor wrote in a note on Oct. 28. Polbank, started by Eurobank in 2006, had 5.7 billion euros of assets at the end of June and reported a net loss of 14 million euros in the second quarter, according to Eurobank.
Poland’s retail loan growth was 12.4 percent in September, according to the National Bank of Poland, the highest rate among major economies in the region. Poland is also one of the few markets where banking assets are for sale as some western lenders pull out to repair balance sheets or comply with European Union conditions for state aid.
Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-10/eurobank-polish-unit-sale-deal-expected-in-next-days-ceo-nanopoulos-says.html
