Operating income worth 25.4m euros for Banca Tiriac

Banca Tiriac logged 25.4 million euro operating income for the nine months ended September 30, up about 61% from the same time last year, the bank says.

The bank did not disclose the net profit for the first nine months, which is not the same as the operating income. The figures released by the bank show its assets were worth 425 million euros at the end of September, 11% more than on December 31, 2002, while the bank’s equity amounted to 50.8 million euros, 62.4% more than in the corresponding period of last year. The fastest growing item in the bank’s financial statement was the lending for individual clients, which progressed by 213%, while the funds attracted from clients rose nearly 10%. The bank focused its strategy on consumer finance, with the total volume of the loans granted to individual clients amounting to 135 million euros.

“The results in the first nine months are beyond our expectations. Anyway, we’ve gone past the budgetary target for this year since the first six or seven months. We took full advantage of the retail market growth in the sense that we allotted significant resources to new retail banking products, both in terms of crediting and in terms of savings. And got the matching results,” George Mucibabici, Banca Tiriac president said. Banca Tiriac shareholders, the most important of which is the group held by businessman Ion Tiriac, this spring decided to increase the bank’s capital by nearly 12 million euros, with the money set to be used for increasing exposure to the retail market mainly. The capital therefore reached 1,097.4bn ROL, some 27.2 million euros. The bank was established in 1991, with the shareholders at the time including the “Ion Tiriac” Group – 73.61%, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) – 5.43%, whereas the rest was held by Romanian and foreign individuals and legal entities. The majority shareholder is now looking to attract a strategic investor and would like an international bank best. The talks have been confined to the shortlisted bidders for the time being. “The process of attracting a strategic investor goes on and is on schedule. It is too soon to be talking about how big a stake the majority shareholder is willing to forgo, as this actually depends on the offers it gets. The talks are now carried with short-listed investors,” Mucibabici says. Estimated for the end of this year, the deal will be most likely completed early next year. The bank is currently managing the accounts of more than 500,000 clients. Its territorial network comprises 54 branches and offices, while the number of ATMs and POS-es reaches 184 and over 800 respectively. oana.nuta@zf.ro