BZ WBK and Kredyt Bank to merge and become third largest bank in Poland
BZ WBK announced that the bank intends to carry out a merger with competitor Kredyt Bank in the second quarter of 2012.
“The plan [of the merger] will include information regarding what the company will look like after the merger is complete,” Mateusz Morawiecki, CEO of BZ WBK, said, as cited by Parkiet. “We will most probably hand it in to the Polish Financial Supervision Authority for assessment in the second quarter.”
The merger will take place in a market that is seeing more and more Poles and Polish companies taking out loans.
“We have registered incredible sales results in the cash loans and SME credits segments,” Morawiecki further stated. “In March, we posted record sales of cash loans, which totaled PLN 260 mln, and the profit from credits for SMEs totaled PLN 400 mln.”
Should the merger be carried out successfully, the banks will become Poland’s third largest banking institution with 800 branches and 100 franchised sales points. Some 40-50 of Kredyt Bank’s branch offices will be closed down, which, according to analysts, may trigger laying off some 1,000 staff. Its client database will exceed 3.5 mln customers.
Following the merger, the Spanish owner of BZ WBK, Banco Santander will hold 76.5% of shares in the combined bank, the Belgian KBC, majority shareholder of Kredyt Bank, will own some 16.4%, while the remaining shares will belong to minority shareholders.
