Banca Unirea to get $10m capital injection

Alpur Invest AG group, the new significant shareholder of Nova Bank, formerly known as Banca Unirea, will invest at least $10 million next year, in order to develop the business, start providing leasing and insurance services and turn the bank into a major player in the Romanian-Russian businesses. At least this is what the chairman of Nova Bank, an influential well-connected Russian businessman says. Alpur Invest is directly and indirectly held by several Russian businessmen, who also hold the Investment and Technology Bank in Moscow. “We got the idea of buying a bank in Romania last year, when I came here and realised the potential of the Romanian banking market over the next few years and that there was no bank to support the Russian-Romanian businesses. The Romanian banking system is now where ours (i.e. the Russian one) was back in 1991-1992,” Anatoly Patron, the bank’s Chairman of the Board recalls. Patron explained they would have taken over a bank sooner, had they not been in business with Emil Botea, owner of the Banca Populara Romana (Romanian People’s Bank – BPR) and implicitly of Unirea, in 2000. The Russians invested nearly $1.5 million in BPR and came to hold a stake in the bank. When BPR collapsed they tried to save what they could and move on. This is how they came to control Unirea. ZF