Portugal’s biggest bank Millennium BCP has
received three written expressions of interest for the possible
sale of its Polish subsidiary, Bank Millennium.
Millennium BCP confirmed in a statement that
beyond these three written expressions, “there are other verbal
expressions of interest” from more lenders and “the reception of
further expressions of interest remains open.”
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On July 27, 2011, Millennium BCP announced
plans of evaluating opportunities to sell its operation in Poland.
Bank Millennium is Poland’s fourth largest bank by
branches.
The top two banks in Poland, PKO Bank Polski
(BP) and Bank Pekao, as well as French bank BNP Paribas are the
three banks to have put in their preliminary offers to buy Bank
Millennium, it has been speculated.
But president of the management board and CEO
of PKO BP, Zbigniew Jagiełło, said in a statement to RBI that
“the current situation, i.e. high market volatility, does not
support acquisitions” and “responsible management of capital,
liquidity and credit risk is currently the main priority for PKO
Bank Polski.”
Jagiełło said the bank will “not comment on
the process of selling Bank Millennium” but added, “We have watched
the consolidation process in Polish banking sector for a long time
and our attitude towards acquisitions has not changed. PKO Bank
Polski is prepared to participate in all transactions that are
beneficial for its shareholders.”
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By GlobalDataA spokesman from Bank Pekao, a unit of Italy’s
UniCredit, said he would make “no comment” regarding this. BNP
Paribas also had “no comment” on the potential bid.
The Millennium BCP statement said that the
process of evaluation “is still in its initial phase”. It added,
“There has been no decision taken concerning our Polish operation,
regarding the realisation of, or model and configuration for, any
potential transaction related to this unit, nor have we solicited
or received any binding proposals related to this operation.”
Millennium BCP, whose 65.5 percent stake in
Bank Millennium is worth $1.1bn, has been under pressure to raise
its capital ratios.
Spanish lender Santander, Russian lender
Sberbank and Italian group Intesa Sanpaolo are also speculated to
be potential bidders for Bank Millennium.
