French lender Societe Generale is interested in taking over Serbia’s Komercijalna Banka [BEL:KMBN], Blic daily reported on Wednesday, citing sources.
A spokesperson from the Serbian unit of Societe Generale, approached by SeeNews, neither denied nor confirmed the information, but said that parent SocGen has been planning new acquisitions and takeovers.
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Komercijalna Banka, in which the Serbian government holds a 41.7% stake, is the country's second biggest lender with total assets of 409.6 billion dinars ($3.6 billion/3.3 billion euro) at end-March, according to central bank data. Its market share by assets stood at 13.5% at end-March, trailing the local unit of Italy's Banca Intesa with 15.7%.
At the same time, Societe Generale banka Srbija was the fifth largest bank with assets of 225 billion dinars and market share of 7.4%
Komercijalna Banka has some 230 branches and offices throughout the country, servicing about 900,000 clients with 1.3 million accounts, according to its website.
Komercijalna Banka is one of the blue chips of the Belgrade Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of 23.6 billion dinars.
(1 euro=123.377 dinars)