The two banking system veterans are using their experience and reputation to establish a new player on the market of funding for small and middle-sized companies. Banking sources say the majority stakeholder in BRCI, Dorinel Umbrarescu, supposedly gave Burduja a free hand as he did not intend to get involved in the day-to-day business.
Umbrarescu, owner of UMB Spedition and Tehnostrade road builders, has an estimated fortune of 360-365 million euros, according to the Top 300 ranking published by Capital in 2013.
Whereas Banca Feroviara of Valer Blidar started from scratch in 2009 and needed 4 years to near profitability, BRCI counts on the framework of former ATE Bank and arrives on the market at a time when the economy is starting to roll.
The executive team of BRCI also includes Dorin Badea, a former head of treasury at UniCredit Tiriac Bank; Gabriel Arsene, who worked at the corporate unit of Raiffeisen when it was run by Burduja; and Andrei Popovici, a former McKinsey consultant.
The fifth member, still awaiting the approval of the national central bank, is Doru Petruti, a former head of risk at RBS.
Once BRCI emerges, the name of ATE Bank, which appeared on the market in 2007, a year after the Greek Agricultural Bank had taken over Mindbank, is set to disappear.
The history of ATE Bank in Romania is an unfortunate illustration of the fact that foreign shareholding is not in any way a guarantee for the stability of a lending institution or for management quality. The bank was in the end rescued through a spinoff.
In November 30, 2013, ATE Bank had assets of RON877 million left, of which RON803 million went to Piraeus Bank and RON73.7 million were taken over by Umbrarescu, one of the oldest “kings of asphalt” established after 2005.
BRCI is setting off with a loan portfolio of just RON4 million, but at least this is a clean portfolio, with the bad debts being shifted to Piraeus. BRCI is thus in the enviable position of holding no bad debts at the moment.
On the asset side, the bank has a T-bill portfolio of almost RON48 million, plus RON14.8 million in cash at the central bank. On the liabilities side, BRCI starts operating with a stock of client deposits of RON36 million, massively covering loans, and no significant debts. Own capitals stand at RON37 million.
In terms of infrastructure, BRCI has only 10 branches, corresponding to the profile of a bank focused on companies as clients.
Umbrarescu is the third Romanian businessman who owns a collateral business in the banking field, beside Ion Tiriac (who owns almost half of UniCredit Tiriac Bank, while its main business is in the car industry), and Valer Blidar (owner of Banca Feroviara and of Astra Vagoane Calatori).
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)