June 18 (SeeNews) - Greece's Piraeus Bank has received five binding bids for the purchase of its Bulgarian unit, according to media reports.
Four Bulgarian bidders and Greece’s Eurobank have tabled bids for the acquisition of Piraeus Bank Bulgaria, Greek media outlet Ekathimerini.com reported last week.
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According to the media report, Piraeus Bank will examine the offers in the second half of June and the final decisions are expected by the end of the month. The transaction is expected to take place in early 2019, Ekathimerini.com said.
Bulgarian media outlet Capital.bg reported last week that according to several sources two Bulgarian lenders - Investbank and Bulgarian American Credit Bank (BACB), and Greece's Eurobank, which owns a subsidiary in Bulgaria, have submitted binding bids.
Piraeus Bank Bulgaria's press office declined to comment on the media reports on Monday. Greece's Piraeus Bank did not immediately reply to an e-mail from SeeNews seeking comment.
Piraeus Bank Bulgaria was the ninth largest bank in the country as at end-April, according to data of the country's central bank. It had total assets of 2.9 billion levs ($1.7 billion/1.48 billion euro) at the end of the first quarter of 2018.
Eurobank Bulgaria, operating the Postbank brand, was the fifth largest lender in the country at the end of April.
Ekathimerini.com reported in June 2017 that Piraeus Bank intended to sell its wholly-owned subsidiaries in Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia as part of a plan to reduce its foreign exposures.
Serbia's Direktna Banka said in April it completed the acquisition of the local banking and leasing operations of Piraeus Bank.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)
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