Millennium chairman: We won''t enter a bidding war for BCR

Portuguese bank BCP Millennium will not enter a bidding war for the privatisation of the largest bank in Romania, Banca Comerciala Romana (BCF), the bank”s chairman Paulo Teixeira Pinto was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Millennium and the Austrians at Erste Bank were selected by BCR”s privatisation committee for final talks over the sale of 61.88% in the Romanian bank.

“For those assets, under those conditions, I won”t change a cent (i.e. of the bid),” Teixeira said. “No one knows the price offered by BCP. I still haven”t seen the correct price cited (in the media) and I”ve read various scenarios,” the head of Portugal”s largest bank concluded.

Since Millennium says it is unwilling to raise its bid for BCR, it remains to be seen how the competitors at Erste Bank will react.

The latest information on the market pointed to bids of more than 3bn euros for the controlling interests in BCR.

The statements of Millennium”s chairman come at a time when the privatisation committee announced the submission of a complaint to the General Prosecutor”s Office regarding possible leaks of information about the process of selling the controlling interests.

Sebastian Vladescu, the chairman of the privatisation committee and also the Minister of Finance requested that the competent authorities investigate whether someone supplied information during the talks with the potential buyers of BCR, given that each of the banks expressly requested that the price offered be kept strictly confidential. In the same context, Premier Calin Popescu Tariceanu brought up the issue of some information published by the media during the talks over the privatisation of BCR, including the amounts offered by the interested parties, considering that even he could not access such data.

All in all, seven banks submitted financial bids for the acquisition of the controlling interests in BCR, namely Deutsche Bank (Germany), Banca Intesa (Italy), BNP Paribas (France), the French-Belgian bank Dexia, the National Bank of Greece, Millennium Banco Comercial Portugues (Portugal) and Erste Bank (Austria).

The procedure for the sale of the leader of the banking market in Romania have now reached the technical negotiation stage, with the talks being focused on the clauses in the purchase-sale contract, as well as on other important documents such as the contract for the strategic investor”s repurchase of shares from the international financial investors that own stakes in BCR – the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and International Finance Corporation (IFC).

The conclusion of the technical negotiations could come at the end of this week, with Erste and Millennium then needing at least eight days to prepare their improved financial bids.

The Romanian state is being assisted by the consultants of Daiwa for the sale of BCR, with the negotiation team also including lawyers from Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen. adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro