Dubai: Qatar National Bank (QNB), the Gulf region’s largest bank, has agreed to buy Turkey’s Finansbank from National Bank of Greece (NBG) for 2.7 billion euros ($2.95bn), as it steps up its search for larger markets overseas.
The Greek bank had to put its Turkish subsidiary up for sale to plug a capital shortfall identified by European Central Bank stress tests in October.
Deal-hungry QNB, half-owned by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, has previously set out ambitions to become the largest bank in the Middle East and Africa by 2017.
“This transaction is a significant milestone in QNB’s vision to becoming a Middle East, Africa icon by 2017 and a leading global bank by 2030,” QNB chief executive Ali Ahmed Al Kuwari said in a statement yesterday.
As part of its aim to overtake the region’s top lender, Africa Standard Bank, it bought Societe Generale’s Egyptian business for $2bn in 2013, and last year acquired a 23.5 per cent stake in pan-African lender Ecobank International.
Finansbank is the fifth largest privately owned bank by assets, deposits and loans in Turkey and has one of the highest capital adequacy
ratios among Turkish banks.
NBG, 40pc owned by the country’s bank rescue fund, said the sale price implied a price-to-tangible book value of around one, representing a premium to the average market value of Turkish banks.
The Greek bank will use the proceeds to pay back 2bn euros of aid from the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund, cutting its annual costs by 150m euros.
QNB said it will finance the purchase of the 99.81pc stake through its own funds and will remain strongly capitalised after the acquisition.
The bank had a total capital adequacy ratio of 14pc at the end of September.
The closing of the transaction, subject to regulatory approval, is expected to be complete in the first half of 2016, QNB said.
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