"Varengold Bank AG sees excellent opportunity to extend its successful business strategy with a branch in Sofia, that will be primarily used for serving its clients which are domiciled in Bulgaria and/or with Bulgarian footprint," Bernhard Fuhrmann, member of Varengold Bank's management board, told SeeNews in a recent interview.
"Through the bank’s know-how and tailor made solutions in the corporate banking area, part of which is market place lending, the bank strongly believes that it would be able to support the existing strong and growing trade flows between Bulgaria and Southeast Europe, and Germany and Western Europe, but also support the industries and communities that the bank operates in, which ultimately is expected to be highly beneficial for the bank and therefore increase value for all stakeholders," he added.
The official also said that market place lending, one of the key areas in which the bank is specialised, is a novelty for the Bulgarian market.
"Market place lending, aside from being a core product and area of competence for Varengold Bank, is new and "underbanked" product for local market, therefore it has the potential to become valuable and important part of our product portfolio in Bulgaria," Fuhrmann said.
Twenty-two banks and five branches of foreign banks operated in Bulgaria as of the end of October. Their total assets decreased to 95.4 billion levs ($57.8 billion/48.77 billion euro) at the end of October, from 90.57 billion levs a year earlier.
As of today, Varengold Bank’s strategy does not envisage opening other branches in Southeast Europe, Fuhrmann said
Varengold Bank's assets stood at some 700 million euro ($829 million) at the end of June, according to data from its interim financial report.
Varengold Bank was founded in 1995 as an asset management boutique and focused on the development of unique, specialized hedge fund strategies from the managed futures space. Its current core business areas are prime brokerage and commercial banking. Varengold Bank has its headquarters in Hamburg and another office in London.
