No change in name for Banca Romaneasca

Banca Romaneasca (Romanian Bank – BR) will not change its name following takeover by the National Bank of Greece (NBG), as neither will it merge with the Romanian branch of the Greek group by absorption, sources close to the deal say. “As regards the name, Banca Romaneasca will most likely keep its name and only have its logo mention it is part of the Greek group, a solution already used for the other banks bought in the Balkans,” the quoted sources said. They added Banca Romaneasca’s “engulfing” of the Romanian branch of the Greek bank was out of the question, at least for the moment. “Everybody knows a bank’s exposure to a specific client may not be higher than 20% of the equity capital and NBG has big clients in Romania at the moment so that its exposure to them would no longer be possible via Banca Romaneasca,” the sources explained. The National Bank of Greece at the end of last week announced it had concluded a deal with the Romanian-American Enterprise Fund (RAEF) to buy 82% in Banca Romaneasca for about 40 million euros. ZF