Bank Austria Creditanstalt (BA-CA) is to acquire 12,978 common shares of its Russian subsidiary International Moscow Bank (IMB), representing a shareholding of 2.79 percent of IMB’s total share capital.
Pursuant to the call option agreement, the price for such shares will be $41.3 million (30.8 million).
In addition, BA-CA and EBRD have signed an agreement to acquire a further 6,822 common shares and 26,533 preference shares of IMB, representing a shareholding of 7.17 per cent of IMB’s total share capital for a price of $188.1 million (140.4 million).
Following completion of the acquisition of the shares held by EBRD, which is currently expected to take place in July subject to regulatory approvals, BA-CA will hold 100 percent of IMB’s total share capital.
“Russia is one of our key growth markets in Central and Eastern Europe, it offers enormous possibilities which we want to use,” says Erich Hampel, head of UniCredit Group’s CEE Division. “The acquisition of the EBRD shares in IMB is a further step of our expansion plan in Russia. Next, as we already announced, we will continue our organic growth and double the branch network of IMB to 120 outlets by the end of 2008.”