* Marinel Burduja: "We want to serve the Romanian entrepreneurs"
* Other Romanian businesspeople will also enter the shareholder structure of the bank
The acquisition of ATE Bank România by Dorinel Umbrărescu is the result of the desire to lay the foundation of a lender with domestic capital that would serve the interests of entrepreneurs in Romania, said Marinel Burduja, former first vice-president of Raiffeisen Bank România, who was the "architect" of the transaction.
The option of acquiring a bank which was already present on the local market, instead of building one from scratch was chosen due to reasons of simplicity and speed, he explained.
Piraeus Bank yesterday announced that it has sold its entire stake in ATE Bank Romania, representing 93.27% of the share capital of the lender, in a report sent yesterday to the Athens Stock Exchange. The deal, worth 10.3 million Euros, will take place after the division of the bank and the transfer of its assets and part of its liabilities to the Romanian subsidiary of Piraeus. The agreement will also need to be approved by the National Bank of Romania (NBR).
BURSA yesterday announced that businessman Dorinel Umbrărescu and banker Marinel Burduja were involved in the deal.
Marinel Burduja said that the entire portfolio of loans of ATE România will be absorbed by Piraeus Bank România, whereas part of the deposits would remain with ATE, with how many of them will remain with the branches to be decided on a case by case basis.
"We have only committed to acquiring a limited number of branches. The deposits opened by them will remain with the acquired bank, and the rest will go to Piraeus Bank România. We don't know the weight of these deposits in the current portfolio", he said.
Aside from Dorinel Umbrărescu, other businesspeople will become shareholders of the bank, according t
