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Weekly Lists
June 29, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 25
bne:Banker Spanish bank
Santander reportedly eyes takeover of SocGen’s Polish business Eurobank
Russia's CBR needs an extra $1.6bn to deal with bad bank assets after clean-up
Spanish bank Santander, the owner of the third-largest Polish lender, BZ WBK, is reportedly interested in buying France’s Societe Gener- ale’s Polish banking business Eurobank, Reuters reported on June 26.
The speculation comes two weeks after the newswire reported that Eurobank was on sale because Societe Generale did not achieve the market position it had hoped for.
Eurobank is only the 17th largest Polish bank, with PLN14bn (€3.3bn) in assets. The country’s persisting low interest rates – the central bank’s rate has been at a record low of 1.5% for over three years now – has led to profitability issues for smaller banks.
Apart from Santander, France’s Credit Agricole and Portuguese banking group Millennium might also be interested, unnamed banking sources told Reuters.
The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) might need an additional RUB100bn ($1.6bn) to set up a "bad bank” to hold distressed assets belonging to bailed out banks, adding to over $40bn the central bank has already spent, Reuters said on June 25 citing unnamed sources.
The CBR under governor Elvira Nabiullina has waged a four- year banking sector clean-up culminating in 2017 with the bailouts of some of country's largest private banks such as Financial Corporation Otkritie, Binbank (aka B&N Bank), and Promsvyazbank (PSB).
The regulator most recently announced that it will be singling out over RUB2 trillion of bad assets of ailed banks into a single "bad assets" fund, while merging FC Otkritie with BinBank, and designating PSB to become a state "defence bank" servicing the military and defence complex.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) is claiming circa UAH25bn ($956mn) of refinancing loans granted to insolvent banks via the courts, the director of the regulator's risk management department Igor Budnyk said in a statement.
"Now, 89 cases on a total amount of claims of UAH25bn are being considered by courts of various instances. The NBU is constantly and systematically working on recovering of debt with the funds and property of guarantors of insolvent banks," Budnyk said.
Ukraine seeks to recover $1bn in refinancing loans granted to insolvent banks via courts