Sat, Feb 11 2012

Many candidates to buy Bulgaria's DZI Bank

Mon, Oct 02 2006 09:00 CET

byIvan Vatahov

1517 Views

Bulgarian insurer DZI, majority owner of DZI Bank, is seeking a month's suspension of trading in the bank's shares after receiving offers from leading European banks for the purchase of its stake, company officials said on September 20.

The insurer has asked the Bulgarian Stock Exchange - Sofia (BSE) and the country's financial regulator - the Financial Supervision Commission - to suspend trading in its own shares and shares in DZI Bank for 30 days in connection with the received offers, DZI said in a statement. The company will require further information from the potential buyers before making a final decision.

"We believe that collecting this additional information will take around 30 days, a period in which DZI will specify its position and its further moves," the statement said, without naming the potential buyers.

Belgium's KBC, Greece's Alpha Bank and EFG Eurobank, Hungary's OTP and Austria's Volksbanken held preliminary talks to acquire a majority stake in DZI Bank at the end of August.

DZI owns 50.09 per cent of DZI Bank, Bulgaria's 11th largest bank by assets.

Earlier on September 20 the BSE said it suspended trading in shares of DZI Bank for three days after DZI insurer informed the stock exchange it has received an offer for the acquisition of DZI's stake in the bank from an unnamed buyer. Halting trade in company shares on BSE for periods longer than three days requires an approval from the FSC.

Officials of DZI insurer and DZI Bank were not available for comment.

DZI shares are included in the blue-chip SOFIX index of the stock exchange in Sofia, while the shares of DZI Bank are part of the bourse's broader BG-40 index.

DZI Bank said in August it was seeking a strategic partner to back its plans for further expansion in retail banking and lending to small and medium-sized enterprises.

DZI Bank was set up in 1994 under the name TrakiaBank in Bulgaria's second-largest city of Plovdiv. In 1998 the bank was renamed Roseximbank and moved its headquarters to Sofia. In 2001, Roseximbank acquired insolvent state-run Mineralbank and was renamed to DZI Bank.

Emil Kyulev, owner and CEO of Bulgaria's largest insurance and banking group, DZI Group, which includes DZI Bank, was shot dead in his car on a busy Sofia boulevard while travelling to work in October 2005. The investigation has not found so far who killed him and why.

Kyulev's family controls indirectly 74.26 per cent of DZI Bank's share capital of 50 million leva.

Bank Austria Creditanstalt acquired 24.83 per cent in the bank last year to back call warrants it had placed with European investors.

The remaining share capital of DZI Bank is traded on the stock exchange in Sofia.

DZI Bank had assets of more than 1.1 billion leva (564 million euro) at the end of June, up from 940.4 million leva a year earlier.

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