OTP Bank, the largest bank in Hungary, is close to completing the transaction by which it will sell its unit in Romania to Banca Transilvania, banking sources told Bloomberg.
A deal could be announced soon, two sources said, while a third said the deal would be announced before the end of the first quarter of 2024.
Talks between Banca Transilvania and OTP started last year. The Hungarian brokerage firm Concorde valued the transaction at 350 million euros.
OTP Bank Romania, controlled by the Hungarian group OTP, decided to sell the Romanian branch of the bank in May 2023. Unicredit, Raiffeisen Bank International, Erste and Banca Transilvania were later interested in the acquisition. Currently, however, the discussions have been kept only with Banca Transilvania.
OTP, which has become one of the largest banks in Central and Eastern Europe after a series of acquisitions, has decided to sell its Romanian business as part of a strategy to divest units with a smaller market share.
In 2015, BT bought Volksbank Romania, and three years later, in 2018, Bancpost, ERB Retail Services and ERB Leasing. It also acquired Victoriabank, from the Republic of Moldova.