Dec
18
Venezuela’s Banesco Group will buy
NCG Banco SA for 1 billion euros ($1.37 billion) as Spain lines
up buyers for banks rescued under last year’s European-funded
bailout.
Through its Spanish Banco Etcheverria unit, Banesco,
controlled by billionaire Juan Carlos Escotet, will also buy two
portfolios of written-off loans, Spain’s bank rescue fund, which
is administering the sale, said in an e-mailed statement today.
Its bid didn’t include any request for state aid, Etcheverria
said in its own statement.
The sale of 88.3 percent of NCG Banco to Banesco is a step
forward for Spain as it seeks buyers for lenders nationalized
under the 41 billion-euro European bailout it obtained as
mounting losses at former savings banks threatened to overwhelm
government finances. NCG Banco, a lender with 57 billion euros
of assets and 672 branches formed from a merger of savings banks
in the region of Galicia, needed 9.1 billion euros of aid to
replenish its capital.
The bank rescue fund, known as FROB, said Dec. 16 it had
received six binding bids for NCG Banco. Because Banesco’s offer
exceeded the next-best offer by at least 200 million euros and
50 percent, a second round of bids wasn’t necessary, the rescue
fund said. Banesco will pay 40 percent of the price when the
sale closes and the rest in stages through 2018, FROB said.
Following the sale of NCG Banco, Spain plans to press ahead
with the sale of Catalunya Banc, a nationalized lender that
needed total capital support of 12.1 billion euros.
Banesco Venezuela
NCG Banco earned 61 million euros in the first nine months
of this year, following an 8 billion-euro full-year loss in
2012. Banco Etcheverria said in a filing today it would keep the
majority of NCG’s branches in the Galicia region in northwestern
Spain.
Escotet confirmed in a post on his Twitter account today
that he would maintain NCG Banco’s focus on the Galicia region
and its workers. He controls 58.9 percent of Banesco in
Venezuela and has a fortune worth $1.1 billion, according to the
Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Banesco, one of three biggest banks in Venezuela in terms
of assets, deposits and loans, according to the November report
from Caracas-based Softline Consultores, has opened branches in
Panama, the U.S., Colombia, Curacao and the Dominican Republic.
Banesco bought 70 percent of Banco Etcheverria in December 2012.
Banesco holds more than 207 billion bolivars ($32.8
billion) in assets in Venezuela, according to Softline. It is
second only in the country to Banco de Venezuela SA, which
former President Hugo Chavez expropriated from Spain’s Banco
Santander SA in 2009.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Charles Penty in Madrid at
cpenty@bloomberg.net;
Corina Pons in Caracas at
crpons@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Frank Connelly at
fconnelly@bloomberg.net
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.