The Austrian bank has carried out its regular annual impairment tests for goodwill, which resulted in a total reduction of goodwill in Romania and elsewhere of about EUR300 million (pre-tax), the lender said in a statement.
“As a result of this extraordinary measure and the recently announced disposal of Erste Group’s Ukrainian subsidiary, the group expects a net profit of some EUR450 million for the full year of 2012,” the bank said.
In the first nine months of 2012, Erste posted a net profit of EUR597.3 million.
Erste owns 93.27% of BCR’s shares. This is Erste’s third impairment charge on BCR, following two similar measures in 2012, when the Austrian bank wrote down around EUR910 million in Romania.