September 14 (SeeNews) - Croatia's central bank, HNB, said it has approved the acquisition of the entire share capital of the local unit of Italy's Veneto Banca by Italian banking group Intesa Sanpaolo.
The acquisition of Veneto Banca's foreign units by Intesa Sanpaolo was subject to approval by pertinent regulators, in this case the Croatian central bank, the HNB said in a statement on Wednesday.
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In June, Intesa Sanpaolo said it agreed to buy the healthy assets of ailing lenders Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza. Under the terms of the deal, the Italian government provided a 4.785 billion euro ($5.8 billion) cash injection to Intesa Sanpaolo and gave it guarantees of up to 12 billion euro.
The two banks suffered from continuous outflow of deposits due to their deteriorating financial position between June 2015 and March 2017. To stabilise the liquidity situation, Italy requested liquidity support measures in the form of state guarantees in the amount of some 10 billion euro, approved by the European Commission in January 2017 and April 2017.
Veneto Banca set foot on the Croatian market in 2006, when it acquired local lender Gospodarsko kreditna banka and renamed it to Veneto Banka Zagreb. The bank operates branch offices in Zagreb, Pula, Porec, Rijeka, Split and Zadar.
($ = 0.840595 euro)