Erste buys employees out of BCR

Erste Bank Austria, which is to take over the controlling interests of the largest bank in Romania, has officially proposed that BCR employees get either money or Erste shares in exchange for their 8% stake. “We have already sent letters to every employee that owns BCR shares. We are suggesting two options for them to sell their shares: payment in cash at a price yet to be fixed, or Erste shares up to the same price,” Michael Mauritz, spokesperson of Erste Bank told ZIARUL FINANCIAR. “We will make them a formal offer in the third quarter, most likely in September, when we will also tell them the price per share. The price per share we will be offering to the employees will be lower than at the time of privatisation, because that price per share included a premium,” the Erste Bank official said. The Austrian bank is to pay the Romanian state and the two institutional investors, EBRD and IFC, a price of 7.65 euros/share. BCR employees bought the shares at a price of 13,500 ROL or 0.3 euros (at the time) in 2004. Erste signed the acquisition contract for 61.88% in BCR at the end of December last year, for which it has to pay 3.75 billion euros. Erste has yet to make an offer to the five SIFs that own more than 30% in BCR together. The SIF managers had a preliminary discussion with Erste early this year. ZF