Spanish lender Banco Popular is to acquire
Banco Pastor in an all-share deal worth around €1.35bn
($1.84bn).

Banco Pastor was one of
5 Spanish lenders to fail the European banking sector stress test
in July.

Combined, Banco Popular
(assets of €130m) and Pastor (€31bn) will have assets of
€161bn.

Banco Popular said that
the acquisition of Pastor would consolidate its position among the
largest 5 Spanish banking groups, behind the country’s largest 4
banks by that measure: Santander (including Banesto), BBVA, Bankia
and Caixabank.

Banco Popular and Pastor
have similar lending profiles with a strong focus on SME
lending.

Popular’s loans book of
€98.2bn includes retail lending of less than one-third (32%);
retail lending makes up 34% of Pastor’s loan portfolio of
€21.3bn.

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Pastor posted a net
profit of €38m in the first half of fiscal 2011.

It ended the first half
with deposits of €15.8bn.

Pastor’s branch network
totaled 603 outlets; combined with Popular’s network of 2,118
units, the newly merged entity will have 2,706 branches.

La Caixa ranks first in
Spain by branches (5,316 outlets), ahead of Santander/Banesto with
a combined 4,687 outlets; Bankia (3,946) and BBVA(3,092) rank third
and fourth-largest by that measure.