January 31 (SeeNews) - Greece's Alpha Bank said it has agreed to sell the entire share capital of its Serbian subsidiary to Serbian industrial conglomerate MK Group.
The sale of Alpha Bank Srbija A.D. is expected to be capital ratio- and liquidity-accretive and is fully consistent with the execution of the restructuring plan of Alpha Bank, the Greek lender said in a filing with the Athens Stock Exchange on Monday.
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The transaction is subject to regulatory approval, Alpha Bank said.
No financial details were disclosed.
MK Group is the owner of Serbian lender AIK Banka. In July, MK Group purchased the shares held by minority shareholders in AIK Banka and delisted the lender from the Belgrade stock exchange.
In August, a document obtained by SeeNews showed that AIK Banka planned to ask its shareholders to approve an acquisition of up to 100% of Alpha Bank Srbija at a general shareholders meeting scheduled for September 2. As a rationale for the potential acquisition, AIK Banka explained that its capital adequacy stood at 34.49% as at end-June, which is by 2.89% more than at end-March, while its strategic objectives for further growth envisage strengthening its market position in the domestic market and in the region through acquisitions of banks that have stable market presence.
Earlier this week, a senior official of the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) said the Serbian subsidiaries of all four Greek systemic banks are up for sale and that the deal for Alpha Bank Serbia will be closed soon. The sale of the four Serbian subsidiaries is part of the European Commission's plans for the restructuring of the four Greek systemic lenders, namely Alpha Bank, Piraeus, Eurobank EFG and the National Bank of Greece (NBG), which include capital hikes and reducing their presence abroad.
Alpha Bank, which presently has 67 branches across Serbia, entered the Serbian market in 2002. In 2005, it acquired Jubanka, Serbia’s seventh largest bank, in a 152 million euro ($164.1 million) privatisation deal.
Elsewhere in Southeastern Europe (SEE), Alpha Bank also has presence in Macedonia, Albania and Romania.
In March, Alpha Bank sold its Bulgarian branch to Bulgaria’s Postbank, a unit of Greece’s Eurobank EFG, in a deal first announced in July 2015, at the height of the Greek banking crisis.
($ = 0.9264 euro)