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Raiffeisen Participates in Bid for Polbank
Raiffeisen International Bank (RBI) tries to get into the act concerning the sale of Polbank. The eighth largest bank in Poland is currently owned by EFG Euro Bank, which is offering its Polish interest for sale.
Two weeks ago, the CEO of RBI, Herbert Stepic hinted: "It is no secret that we are looking around in Poland. The market is much too interesting to pass to conduct only a niche policy." Polbank would also be interesting for Raiffeisen because 335 branches would be acquired immediately. Currently, Raiffeisen has 125 branches in Poland.
The sales process of the 44.1% stake in the Polbank runs until November 11. Among the bidders are the Italian Intesa and BNP Paribas of France. Erste Group and UniCredit subsidiary Bank Austria are not participating. The remaining shares of Polbank are free float.
Polbank, which has focused on private clients, has 800,000 clients with a loan amount of 5.1 billion euro (7.2 billion dollars). The market share in Poland in the private customer sector was about 4.4%. The bank has however had no profits since 2009. Last year’s losses were 40 million euro and in the first half-year 2010 18.4 million euro.