The representatives of Hungarian bank MKB are preparing to sign the acquisition contract for Romanian-based Romexterra Bank. The deal will be sealed in Budapest in the next few days and will grant the Hungarians access to the Romanian banking market, sources on the financial market told ZIARUL FINANCIAR.
MKB, the third-largest bank on the Hungarian market is controlled by the German Bayerische Landesbank, which owns an 89.62% stake.
Bayerische Landesbank officials have recently confirmed their appetite for acquisitions on the banking market, although they have not revealed the names of their targets.
MKB submitted a bid to buy Banca Tiriac last year but was eventually outbid by the German HVB Group.
According to the quoted sources, MKB's bid puts Romexterra Bank at approximately two times more than the value of its net assets. MKB's bid evaluates Romexterra at about 100 million euros, according to the information on the market. Hungary's foreign trade bank, MKB, is to buy at least 51% in Romexterra, within 60 days from the signing of the contract. It then plans to get the remaining 49 percent.
Romexterra has over 100,000 shareholders, which means the shareholders are widely dispersed. Employees from the petroleum and gas industry, including the union members led by Liviu Luca are among the shareholders. Petrom owns 2%, gas industry companies have 3.23%, legal entities with private capital own 17.63% and a number of individuals hold 77.13%.
The group of companies including the Petrom employees led by Liviu Luca has been behind a concentration of shares in view of the sale, over the last few months.
Romexterra is one of the small banks on the Romanian market, holding 0.8% of the market at the end of last year, with assets worth over one billion RON (286 million euros). The bank's profit rose by 120% in 2005 to 22.6 million RON
