The Romanian Savings Bank (CEC) made gross profits of 699.3bn ROL (1.7bn euros) for the first nine months of this year, 60% higher (in ROL) than for the same period of 2003. Compared with August 2004, the bank’s gross profits increased by 10% in ROL.
The total assets held by the bank amounted to 48,098bn ROL (1.2bn euros) at the end of September.
Resources attracted by CEC increased by nearly 26%, compared to September 2003, to a total of 40,906bn ROL (about one billion euros). Credits granted by CEC increased by 16% to approximately 7,000bn ROL (170 million euros). Earlier this month, the bank lowered the interest rate it charges for loans for personal use by one percent to 24% annually. The interest rates for the other types of credits offered to individual customers, e.g. the Adolescent (Teenager) credit, housing loans and loans for buying a car, remain unchanged at 20%, 21% and 23% respectively.
Interest rates charged to legal entities on lines of credit are to be cut by three percentage points to 25%. Small and medium-sized enterprises will be able to take out loans at rates of up to 20%, depending on the source of financing.
The CEC privatisation commission recently started negotiations for the awarding of the privatisation consultancy contract to JP Morgan investment bank. The contract will be awarded when negotiations are completed. If the talks fall through, the commission will begin talks anew with the bank with the next best financial bid.
Other bidders for the consultancy contract include Citigroup Global Markets and Credit Suisse First Boston.
The consultant will have until February 2005 to devise the CEC sale strategy, which the Government will endorse by latest end of March 2005, with the whole process scheduled for completion by the end of next year. The bank is now the fourth largest player on the market with a 6.37% market share in terms of assets. Banc Post, the fifth largest player, recently announced plans to reach the top three.
CEC’s has a share capital of 1,497bn ROL (36.5 million euros). It employs around 9,200 people and has a network of 1,424 branches.
liviu.chiru@zf.ro