Volksbank Romania to be offered for sale
2011-12-19 11:21:37
The Austrian group Volksbank International (VBI) has announced plans to sell its Romanian branch.
Volksbank Romania will be transferred to a new division, named Non-Core Business, together with Volksbank Leasing International and Volksbank Malta, activities which will be for sale.
Volksbank announced in a statement that shareholders approved on Thursday the re-organisation of the group. Personnel will be cut by 20 per cent by the end of 2013, which means around 250 employees.
Volksbank Romania will continue with its activities, it said in a statement: "Volksbank Romania will continue to operate in Romania, the possibility to discontinue activities is excluded!
"There are no talks about selling the bank in the immediate future."
Volksbank Romania will receive an increase of capital of 200 million Euros.
The Romanian division of Volksbank International (VBI) - which is VBI's largest bank asset of 4.7 billion Euros - has been left out of the VBI purchase by Russia's state bank Sberbank in July this year.
An acquisition memorandum was signed between the two banks, including VBI operations in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Ukraine and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Sberbank will buy total bank assets worth 8.9 billion Euros, 311 bank units and 4,000 employees in nine markets, according to Bloomberg.
Sberbank is Russia'a largest bank, accounting for over a quarter of Russian bank assets, according to its website.
Previous reports showed that Austria's Volksbank International registered a 36-million-Euro loss in Romania last year.
The group Volksbank had a loss of 21.8 million Euros.
The manager of the company, Friedhelm Boschert, said that Romania was the only country where the bank registered a loss, all the other nine countries it operated in, Volksbank had made a profit in.
Last year Volksbank Romania was the third biggest bank in Romania, with total assets of 5.2 million Euros. Volksbank has 185 branches and 255,000 clients.
Volksbank entered the Romanian market in 2000.