First Bank has announced it had signed an agreement with Bank Leumi le-Israel B.M to purchase the Bank Leumi subsidiary in Romania.
The acquisition is pending the National Bank of Romania’s and Competition Council’s consents and is expected to be concluded in the second part of this year.
According to the First Bank executive president Dominic Bruynseels, the acquisition is part of the bank’s strategy to expand and enhance its presence in Romania, with the goal of becoming a strong actor on the local market.
In his turn, Hanan Friedman, first vice-president of the Strategy and Innovation Divisio, Bank Leumi Israel stated that the sale will still allow the implementation of the Leumi strategy “follow your customer”.
Bank Leumi Romania holds a national network of 15 subsidiaries and manages assets over EUR 250 million and deposits of EUR 150 million.
First Bank, the former Piraeus Bank, Wednesday opened its first branch on the local market under a new identity in November last year, after Piraeus Bank Romania had been acquired by JCF IV Tiger Holdings S.àr.l, an entity which is part of the group JC Flowers & Co earlier in June last year.
First Bank Romania operates through 100 banking units, has 1,200 employees and about 130,000 active clients. At the end of last year, it was ranked the 11th among the banks in terms of assets, aggregating assets worth approximately RON 6.44 billion, equivalent to a market share of 1.51 percent.