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10 I Companies & Markets bne November 2018
Equity investors are nervous as to what they can expect from richest Czech Petr Kellner given his past treatment of minority shareholders.
Moneta, Air Bank and Home Credit to
create third largest Czech bank
bne IntelliNews
Abig Czech banking market shake-up is on the cards after Prague-listed Moneta Money Bank (formerly GE Money Bank) on October 8 announced it is in discussions
to acquire Air Bank and Home Credit’s Czech and Slovak consumer loans arm from the PPF Group owned by richest Czech Petr Kellner.
The Czech koruna (CZK) 20bn (€750mn) deal, which has reached a preliminary and non-binding stage, would create the third-largest bank by distribution network in the Czech Republic – behind Ceska sporitelna and CSOB – and the fifth largest by assets.
Moneta, which is to take the Air Bank name, plans to swap 24.5% of its equity in the form of new shares for Air Bank and Home Credit CZ/SK and make a cash payment to PPF of CZK6.75bn. Jiri Smejc’s Emma Capita is to take 2.8pp of the new shares.
Given that Kellner will own slightly more than a fifth of the new entity analysts spoke of how he might be pulling off
a coup by swapping an unlisted financial institution for
a listed one.
J&T Bank said in a research note: "It is too early to assess the benefit of the transaction for existing shareholders but we
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consider it positive that the bank will have a major shareholder and that it will be able to compete to a bigger extent with the largest banks on the Czech market."
‘Price 2.5 times higher than usual’
After the draft deal was announced, Moneta Money Bank’s shares fell at one point by 4.5%, before closing down 1.5% at CZK80.80. The share price fell as analysts and investors
“The deal will create the third-largest bank by distribution network in the Czech Republic”
expressed doubt about whether Moneta is paying too much, with analyst Milan Lavicka at J&T saying that the price was 2.5 times higher than the usual price in Czech banking but that he does not consider it excessive given Air Bank’s quick growth and the expected synergies.
The fall in the share price was also attributed to Kellner’s reputation for playing rough with minority shareholders in listed companies. When Kellner bought Czech telecom provider O2, remaining shareholders complained that