BCR spends 12m euros on merger of branches

Banca Anglo-Romana (Anglo-Romanian Bank) announced on Tuesday the completion of its merger through absorption with Banca Franco-Romana (Franco-Romanian Bank), the French arm of Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank -BCR).

In a broader process, BCR reunited its English, French (Franco-Romanian Bank) and German (Frankfurt-Bukarest Bank) subsidiaries under a single brand, the Anglo-Romanian Bank Limited (ARBL).

The merger of the three banks, a process carried out over a three-year period, included the repurchasing of stakes owned by the other shareholders in these subsidiaries, and necessitated an investment by BCR of 12 million euros.

“We’ve obtained a satisfactory price for all parties in these acquisitions. During the transactions we benefited from the advice of PricewaterhouseCoopers, which assessed the banks’ assets, settled the price and handled the due diligence. In the case of the Franco-Romanian bank, the French shareholders wanted its liquidation,” explained Nicolae Danila, BCR executive chairman.

At present, BCR owns a subsidiary of Moldova-BCR Kishinev, and holds 19% in Banca Romano-Egipteana (Romanian-Egyptian Bank) and 7% in Banca Italo-Romena. Danila went on to say that BCR had reduced its stake in Banca Italo-Romena from 50% and was considering selling the remaining stock to the Italian group Veneto Banca.

In the new structure, ARBL has capital of 101 million euros and holds assets worth 350 million euros.

“The relatively low level of the bank’s assets came as a result of the shareholders’ request for liquidities. In the future, we will apply a different capital use policy, as we are targeting growth. It will be easier for us to achieve growth united under a single name,” said Thomas Butler, ARBL executive chairman, who went on to say that he plans to triple the volume of assets by the end of next year. This target will be easy to achieve considering the low comparison basis and the nature of activities, involving operations with large sums.

“Our bank works with big customers, whose financing needs range between 5 and 50 million euros. We are not interested in the retail sector, where BCR is much better positioned,” added Butler. At present, the bank has over 500 clients, most of them Romanian (about 80%). Their importance as part of total operations is much lower, however, since foreign clients deal in large sums.
liviu.chiru@zf.ro