Societe Generale competing for the purchase of Komercijalna Banka

Societe Generale Bank is interested in purchasing Komercijalna Banka, the last remaining large bank whose majority owner is the state, as Blic learns.

Societe Generale Bank has neither confirmed nor denied the information, but they say that they are interested in new acquisitions and expansion in the Serbian market.

However, the bank's greatest rival in this endeavor, as eKapija wrote earlier, is Erste Bank.

If it took over Komercijalna Banka, Erste Bank would become one of the top three banks in Serbia, which is the position it already has in other markets it operates in. In addition to the market share, the reason for the purchase of the bank is also the estimation that a similar amount of resources is deployed in purchasing a small bank as it is in purchasing a large one, and that it is therefore clearly better to purchase the larger one.

The president of the Executive Board of Erste Bank, Slavko Caric, has recently stated that they might be interested if one of the larger banks were put up on sale. When asked about the size of the bank they might be interested in, he said: “at least slightly larger than ours”.

Komercijalna Banka officially announced that it was preparing for privatization at the end of 2015. Alexander Picker, the bank's CEO, said at the time that the bank was entering 2016 with more ambitious plans in order to be in top form and prepare for the 2017 privatization as well as possible.

OTP banka Srbija a.d. Novi Sad

NLB Komercijalna banka AD Beograd

Erste Bank a.d. Novi Sad

Alexander Picker

Slavko Caric

privatization of Komercijalna Banka