August 1 (SeeNews) - Serbia's central bank has not yet approved the agreement for the sale of the local unit of French banking group Societe Generale to Hungary's OTP Bank, central bank governor Jorgovanka Tabakovic said.
"OTP applied for approval of the acquisition of Societe Generale Serbia in May. The application is being processed. We are working, having in mind that Societe Generale is a systemically important bank," Tabakovic said in a video file published by Tanjug news agency on Wednesday.
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Tabakovic did not say when the central bank is expected to come up with a decision on the agreement.
In December, Societe Generale said that it entered into an agreement with a view to sell its Serbian unit to OTP Bank.
On completion, this transaction is expected to have a positive impact on Societe Generale’s CET1 ratio of around 8 basis points and to reduce the group’s risk-weighted assets by around 1.95 billion euro. The transaction will have a negative impact of around 108 million euro on the French group’s fourth-quarter earnings mainly due to goodwill impairment, the French banking group said back then.
OTP Banka Srbija purchased from National Bank of Greece (NBG) a 100% shareholding in Serbia's Vojvodjanska Banka and NBG Leasing, as well as certain other Serbian exposures held by National Bank of Greece in August 2017.
Earlier this month, Albanian and Bulgarian regulators approved the sale of the subsidiaries of Societe Generale in those countries to OTP.
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