OTP Bank buys Vojvodjanska Banka for EUR 125 million – Transaction to be completed in 2017

The Hungarian OTP Bank bought the 100% of ownership in Vojvodjanska Banka and NBG Leasing for EUR 125 million on Friday, August 4, 2017.

Representatives of the National Bank of Greece (NBG) and OTB Bank Serbia (OBSr) signed an agreement on the sale of Vojvodjanska Banka and NBG Leasing and other branches of NBG Group in Serbia. The agreed amount for the capital stock of Vojvodjanska Banka and NBG Leasing amounts to EUR 125 million, the OTP Bank press release says.

As a result of the takeover, the market share of OTP Bank Serbia will rise to 5.7%, making it the seventh biggest bank in the Serbian market.

– In the past years, OBSr has been continually growing, and we expect this positive trend to continue, aided by this takeover – said Laszlo Wolf, Deputy CEO of OTP Bank Hungary and chairman of the Managing Board of OBSr.

– Our strategic goal is to increase our market share in the countries in which we are present. After the successfully realized acquisitions in Croatia and Romania, this is the third bank takeover we’ve carried out in the past few months. Keeping in mind that we are dedicated to a further strengthening of our presence, we will continue carefully monitoring the opportunities for takeovers of other banks in the region. The financial completion of this transaction will be realized once the necessary official approvals have been issued, which we expect will happen by the end of this year – Wolf added.

Predrag Mihajlovic, chairman of the Executive Board of OBSr, points out that the takeover further strengthens the bank’s presence in Serbia, enabling a long-term profitability of operations.

– We are convinced that over a million clients, natural persons, users of Vojvodjanska Banka’s services, will be satisfied with the high-quality range of products and services offered by the OTP group – Mihajlovic said.

With a market share of 4.2% in the balance sheet assets of the banking sector at the end of 2016, Vojvodjanska Banka is the ninth bank in Serbia looking by size, with a considerable pool of retail clients, and, as a universal bank, it is also an active participant in the segment of legal persons. In 2016, the total assets of VB amounted to EUR 1,173 million, with EUR 810 million in loans. In the past two years, the bank had ROE of 1.9% and 2.3%.

VB currently has 1,405 employees, a network of 105 branches and 138 ATMs.

The client of VB can expect an improved offer of products and the quality of service in the upcoming period, the press release says.

It is expected that the financial completion of the transaction will happen by the end of 2017, and OTP Bank Serbia and Vojvodjanska Banka will make maximum efforts to secure an efficient integration of financial institutions.

OTP banka Srbija a.d. Novi Sad

Vojvođanska banka a.d. Novi Sad

Nacionalna banka Grčke Beograd

National Bank of Greece S.A. Grčka

OTP Lizing d.o.o.

OTP Bank Serbia

National Bank of Greece

NBG Group

Vojvodjanska Banka

NBG Leasing

Laszlo Wolf

Predrag Mihajlovic

acquisition of Vojvodjanska Banka

banks in Serbia

banking market Serbia