August 25 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's Victoria Commercial Bank, a wholly-owned subsidiary of bankrupt Corpbank, said it posted a net profit of 10,000 levs ($5,760/5,100 euro) in the first half of the year while cutting debt to its parent by 25% to 87.7 million levs ($50.5 million/44.8 million euro).
Victoria ended 2015 with a net loss of 9.3 million levs.
You can subscribe to our M&A newsletter here
The bank, for which a sale procedure has been launched, said in a letter posted on its website that potential buyers can submit expressions of interest by September 16.
Victoria's total assets stood at 137.3 million levs at the end of June. Gross customer loans amounted to 105 million levs, while deposits added up to 6.6 million levs. Gross non-performing loans totalled 10.6 million levs at the end of June, down from 11 million levs at end of 2015.
A recent asset quality review of Bulgarian banks showed that Victoria had a capital ratio (CET1) of 24.5%, versus 7.4% prior to the check which took into account data as of December 31, 2015. The capital adequacy results were well above the regulatory minimum of 4.5%.
In June 2014 Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank) finalised the purchase of Credit Agricole's local unit and renamed it to Victoria Commercial Bank. However, later that month Corpbank was hit by a run on deposits, prompting the Bulgarian central bank to placed it and its affiliate Victoria Commercial Bank under conservatorship, suspending all payments.
In November 2014 the central bank made a mandatory prescription to the conservators of Victoria to start a procedure for the sale of part of the credit portfolios of the bank to local lenders Tokuda Bank, Societe Generale Expressbank, and Central Cooperative Bank (CCB) for a combined 180 million levs, which would be enough to repay deposits - both secured and unsecured - worth a total of 160 million levs.
Victoria's special supervision ran out at the end of 2014, whereas Corpbank was declared insolvent in April 2015.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)