Wednesday, Erste said it has reached an agreement in principle with SIF Banat Crisana, SIF Transilvania, SIF Munteania and SIF Oltenia, but not SIF Moldova, to acquire 24.12% or 2.6 billion shares in BCR for EUR435 million in cash and stock via a series of transactions.
The deal, subject to SIF corporate approval proceedings, sets BCR’s value at EUR1.8 billion.
Further to the transaction with the participating SIFs, Erste Group will continue to make separate annual share purchase offers to the remaining employee minority shareholders (0.48%) adhering to the same principles as in the 2010 offer, the Austrian bank said in a statement.
In 2010, Erste proposed BCR’s employees EUR15 million for a total stake of 0.57%. The offer put BCR’s value at EUR2.6 billion.
“As a shareholder in the SIFs I find it frustrating that the price for the SIF deal is based on the share price of Erste Group on the Vienna stock exchange, while the annual purchase offers to the other minority shareholders in BCR remain (unchanged). There’s a difference of nearly 50% between the two offers; it’s absolutely frustrating,” Radu Hanga, general manager of BT Asset Management, told MEDIAFAX.
Lawyer Cristian Dutescu, who represents the Firebird investment funds, said in turn that Erste’s offer might have been higher if all five SIFs were to form an alliance during the negotiations.