Erste willing to spend to get CEC

If Erste Bank does not buy CEC (Romanian Savings Bank) things will still be all right because this will mean the Romanian state received a very large amount of money, said Andreas Treichl, the chairman of Erste Bank, Austria”s second largest banking institution in terms of assets and one of the most ambitious investors in the battle for CEC. “We are able to offer a good price for CEC. We are interested in it because it is a savings bank like we are and therefore is the ideal target,” he said. Treichle”s strategist, Manfred Wimmer, said: “Clearly we cannot comment on the amount we are willing to pay for CEC. All we can say, however, is that we paid 1.52 times the accounting value for Czeska Sporitelna.” Until 2002, when Erste increased its interest in the Czech bank to 98%, it had paid nearly 1.3bn euros. “If we fail in our attempt to buy CEC, this certainly does not mean we no longer want to enter the market. It is true there are not many opportunities left to do so, but our determination may go as far as entering by means of an investment from scratch,” added Treichl. ZF