BELGRADE (Serbia), July 6 (SeeNews) – Hungarian bank OTP, which is contemplating acquisition opportunities in Southeast Europe, declined to comment for SeeNews on its potential participation in a deal for the sale of the Serbian unit of Russian bank VTB, while Czech-based investment group PPF, which has been investing heavily in the region lately, said it will not participate.
Earlier this week, VTB's president Andrey Kostin said the bank plans to sell its Serbian subsidiary VTB Banka a.d. Beograd to an unnamed investor from Central Europe for 10 million euro ($11.7 million).
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Approached for comment by SeeNews, Zuzana Migdalova, a spokesperson for PPF, said the group is not involved in the VTB Banka deal.
"PPF does not participate in the mentioned transaction," Migdalova said late on Thursday in an emailed response to a SeeNews enquiry.
In June PPF entered into an agreement with Norway's Telenor Group to buy 100% of Serbia-based Telenor Banka. Three months earlier PPF agreed to buy Telenor's assets in Central and Eastern Europe for 2.8 billion euro ($3.28 billion) on an enterprise value basis. The transaction included Telenor's wholly-owned mobile operations in Hungary, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia. In February PPF agreed with Sweden-based entertainment company Modern Times Group (MTG) to buy its 95% stake in Bulgaria's Nova Broadcasting Group, as the transaction values 100% of Nova Broadcasting Group at 185 million euro.
Another likely buyer of VTB Banka, the Serbian unit of OTP, declined to tell SeeNews whether it is in contact with VTB in connection with a possible deal.
"OTP Bank does not comment media information in connection with this topic," the Serbian unit of OTP said in an email to SeeNews on Thursday.
"In general, OTP Bank continually investigates the acquisition opportunities in the region, especially in countries where the banking group is present," it added.
The CEO of OTP, Sandor Csanyi said in December that six subsidiaries of troubled European banks will be available for acquisition in 2018, not only in Serbia, but throughout the region.
In the spring of 2017, the first deputy president of VTB, Yuri Soloviev, said two foreign investors had expressed interest in the acquisition of VTB Banka.
VTB took control of the Serbian bank in 2013 as a result of the acquisition of the Bank of Moscow. Back then, the name of the Serbian lender was changed to VTB Banka a.d. Beograd from Bank of Moscow (Belgrade).
($ = 0.8538 euro)
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