Banca Romaneasca tries to catch up

Banca Romaneasca has performed a share capital increase of 28.8 million euros in order to secure funds for investments. The move is part of its attempt to catch up on the banking market, where despite its majority shareholder being the most powerful financial group in Greece it is lagging behind other financial groups. The bank now has a share capital of 1,482bn ROL (41.1 million euros). The capital increase will allow it to successfully withstand offensives by the other financial groups operating in Romania and to increase its market share. Banca Romaneasca was acquired by National Bank of Greece Group in 2003. With 222 million euros in total assets at the end of 2004, the bank currently accounts for 1% of the market, putting it in the second tier of credit institutions. Bank officials were unavailable to comment on the capital increase. Initially, the increase was set at 30 million euros, but in the end some individual shareholders did not come up with the money. The increase drove Banca Romaneasca up to eighth place in terms of capitalisation in the Romanian bank rankings. The bank’s funds have doubled since the beginning of the year to 2,000bn ROL (55.5 million euros) compared with 975bn ROL (24.5 million euros) at the end of December 2004. It concluded 2004 with profits of nearly 221bn ROL (5.5 million euros). ZF