TIRANA (Albania), November 19 (SeeNews) – Albania’s Union Bank has sought regulatory approval for a deal to buy 100% of the shares of local International Commercial Bank (ICBank), Tirana-based media reported on Monday.
The two banks signed an agreement on the sale of ICBank earlier this month and have applied for approval with the Bank of Albania and the county’s competition authority, business magazine Monitor reported, citing sources from county’s competition authority.
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No information on the sale price was disclosed.
Several phone calls and e-mails to Union Bank, ICbank, Bank of Albania and the competition authority seeking comment on the deal went answered by Monday, 1:00 pm.
Union Bank is the eighth largest bank in the country with 3.4% of the total assets in the end of September, according to data published by the Albanian Association of Banks (AAB) earlier this month. ICBank accounts for 0.7% of total assets in the county’s banking sector with 6 branches and 94 employees.
In September, Albania’s central bank approved the absorption of the local units of Italy's Veneto Banca and National Bank of Greece, respectively by Italian banking group Intesa Sanpaolo and Tirana-based American Bank of Investments.
The merger of Intesa Sanpaolo and Veneto Banka comes one year after the Italian banking group acquired the bankrupt Veneto Banca in Italy and its subsidiaries in several countries including Albania.
The merger of NBG Albania into ABI took place after the Greek lender said in February it agreed to sell its Albanian subsidiary to ABI.