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Weekly Lists
February 8, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 24
bne:Banker OTP Bank signs deal to
buy majority stake in Moldova’s Mobiasbanca
Former CEO of collapsed Financial Corporation Otkritie accused of embezzling $500mn
Hungary’s largest lender OTP Bank said on February 6 it has signed a deal to purchase a 87.85% shareholding in Mobiasbanca – Groupe Societe Generale, the Moldovan subsidiary of Societe Generale Group.
The Hungarian bank has set foreign expansion as a key priority. In January, OTP closed the acquisition of the Bulgarian unit of Societe Generale Group, while in December last year, Societe Generale Group said it had entered into an agreement to sell its Serbian unit to OTP Bank. In Romania, it planned to acquire local Banca Romaneasca, part of the National Bank of Greece (NBG), but the sale was banned by the central bank.
Mobiasbanca reported a net profit of MDL301.1mn last year, up from MDL277.6mn a year before.
The former CEO of collapsed bank Financial Corporation Otkritie Evgeny Dankevich has been put on a wanted list by Russia’s Inves- tigative Committee, accusing of embezzling RUB34bn ($518.5mn), the committee’s deputy chairman Igor Krasnov told journalists on February 5.
"Dankevich has been put on a wanted list over embezzling RUB34bn, and together with the Federal Security Service we are carrying out an investigation aimed at finding his accomplices," Krasnov said in an interview with Kommersant business daily, as cited by Tass.
Otkritie was one of the so-called Garden Ring banks that got into trouble in September 2017 and were eventually taken over by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR).
Serbia hopes to pick a strategic partner for its second-largest bank Komercijalna Banka by the end of 2019, Finance Minister Sinisa Mali said on February 6.
Serbia has already launched the procedure that will lead to privatisation of the state-owned stake in the bank at the end of 2018, calling a tender for a financial adviser.
The Serbian state is currently the bank’s largest stakeholder with a 41.7% stake, while the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) owns 24.4% of the bank.
Serbia hopes to sell stake in Komercijalna Banka by end-2019