Slovak OTP Bank Up for Grabs, Hungarian Owners Leaving Slovak Market

Bratislava, August 27 (TASR) - The Slovak subsidiary of Hungarian OTP Bank is up for sale, with CSOB, Tatra banka and investment group Penta, which controls Prima Banka, the hottest candidates to purchase it, Trend weekly reported on Tuesday. OTP Banka has already started receiving non-binding bids from potential buyers. Several sources from the banking sector have confirmed that the sale of the bank has been launched for the weekly. None of the four companies have denied the information or called it untrue, but they didn't want to comment in more detail. According to information and data stemming from the Slovak banking market for several years, CSOB, Tatra banka and Penta have real reasons to buy, while OTP has real reasons to sell, wrote Trend. The Hungarian company began developing OTP Banka in Slovakia from the Investment and Development Bank, which it took over in 2002. Trend notes that the Slovak OTP was put up for sale once before, before the summer of 2008, but its owners put a stop to the process after a couple of months in reaction to the emerging crisis, which would have pushed the value of the financial institution down. Trend sees a couple of reasons for the current sale. The Slovak OTP has been losing its positions over the past couple of years, and its own equity has been falling as well. ko/df