The sale process is still being run by the London investment arm of Credit Suisse.
Banking sector sources say three investors have shown interest so far – private equity firm J.C. Flowers, which bought Piraeus Bank Romania, Patria Bank via private equity firm AxxessCapital and the Vardinogiannis family, who bought Marfin Bank Romania.
Interested parties have until September 24 to submit non-binding bids then they will go into the data room.
The three investors are trying to boost market share through new acquisitions considering organic growth takes too long and is extremely expensive.
The NBG group is trying to sell Banca Romaneasca by yearend. Romania’s central bank’s vetoing of the acquisition by OTP came as a surprise, since it had previously greenlighted two bank acquisitions in Romania by the Hungarian group – RoBank and Millennium Bank. OTP Bank did not challenge Romania’s central bank decision.
Banca Romaneasca ranked 14th among lenders in Romania at the end of 2017, with 6.2 billion lei (EUR1.3 billion ) assets and 1.46% market share.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)