Banca Transilvania (TLV), the biggest Romanian-held private bank, is turning to large clients to resume growth, as the bank's management believes the retail segment cannot be a growth driver in the following year.
The bank's shareholders have approved increasing the share capital by 391m RON (95m euros), of which 120m RON (29m euros) represents shareholders' contribution.
The bank thus once again resorts to shareholders' support, after it distributed dividends for the first time last year, resuming its growth strategy, which was frozen last year as a result of the financial crisis. During the 2005-2008 period, Banca Transilvania increased its share capital eight times, from 133m RON to 1.08bn RON, and raised around 420m RON from shareholders.
"We proposed the share capital be increased through cash contributions as well in order to cement our position, since we see solid growth opportunities on the domestic market. Shareholders have unanimously accepted this proposal," stated Horia Ciorcila, founder of Banca Transilvania, reconfirmed yesterday in the position of board of directors chairman.
He says he targets loan portfolio expansion, also announcing a change of strategy, by shifting to the segment of large companies, after the Cluj-Napoca-based lending institution managed to reach the top ten of largest banks domestically in terms of assets by mainly lending to small and medium-sized companies and individuals.
Last year, the bank's loan portfolio rose by around 4.5% in RON, to 11.5bn RON (2.74bn euros), particularly boosted by the corporate segment, which climbed by over 10% to 5.04bn RON (1.2bn euros). On the SMEs segment, placements dropped by around 9%, to 1.67bn RON (400m euros) and on the retail one the volume of loans fell by 5%, to 4.95bn RON (1.17bn euros), according to the annual report.
For this year, Banca Transilvania h
