Latest news with #Erste
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Santander to offload 49% stake in Polish business to Erste for €7bn
Banco Santander has agreed to sell about 49% of its shares in its Polish banking business, Santander Polska, to Austrian bank Erste Group for €6.8bn($7.7bn). In addition, Erste will acquire 50% of Santander Polska's asset management business (TFI) not currently owned by the bank for €0.2bn, bringing the total value of the all-cash transaction to €7bn($7.9m). The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2025, contingent upon customary conditions and regulatory approval. Santander will retain around 13% of Santander Polska and plans to fully acquire Santander Consumer Bank Polska by purchasing the remaining 60% stake from Santander Polska before closing. The agreed transaction price is 584 zlotys per share, representing a 7.5% premium to Santander Polska's 2 May 2025 closing price. Erste will fund the all-cash purchase entirely with "internal resources", by cancelling its planned €700m share buyback and temporarily reducing its dividend payments. Santander expects to make a €2bn net capital gain from the sale. Alongside the equity transaction, Santander and Erste have agreed to enter a strategic cooperation covering Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB) and payment services. The collaboration will include a referral-based model allowing the institutions to leverage their respective regional strengths, offering localised solutions and market insights to corporate and institutional clients. Santander will also provide Erste's clients with access to its global CIB platforms across the UK, Europe, and the Americas. In the area of payments, the two banks intend to explore opportunities for Erste to utilise Santander's payment infrastructure, including services offered by Santander's PagoNxt platform, with the potential to expand access to Santander Polska post-transaction. Following the transaction, Banco Santander aims to return part of the capital to shareholders. It intends to distribute approximately €3.2bn via share buybacks, equivalent to 50% of the capital released. This would contribute to the group's broader buyback goal of up to €10bn from 2025 and 2026 earnings and surplus capital, with the possibility of exceeding that target depending on market conditions and regulatory approval. The bank anticipates the deal will be earnings per share accretive by 2027–2028, through a combination of organic growth, share repurchases, and selective acquisitions aligned with its strategic and return criteria. Banco Santander executive chair Ana Botín stated: "This transaction is another key step in our strategic focus on shareholder value creation which is based on both accelerating our platform strategy through ONE Transformation and growing the group's scale in geographies with highly connected markets.
CNBC
05-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Erste acquires 49% stake in Santander's Polish unit for $7.7 billion
Austria's Erste Group Bank acquired a 49% stake in Santander's Polish unit for around 6.8 billion euros ($7.7 billion), Santander and Erste said Monday, driving shares in Santander Bank Polska down around 5% in Warsaw. Santander and Erste also reached a deal for Erste to acquire 50% of the Spanish lender's Polish asset management business for 200 million euros, they said. Erste said it would fund the acquisitions exclusively from internal resources. Its shares jumped 6.46% while those in Santander were up 0.3% by 0830 GMT. Santander, the euro zone's biggest lender by market value, said it would use part of the proceeds to grow organically in Europe and the Americas. Both banks also announced a strategic cooperation in corporate & Investment Banking (CIB), and to allow Erste to gain access to Santander's global payments platforms, Santander said. The all-cash transaction of 584 zlotys ($155) per share valued Santander Bank Polska at 2.2 times first quarter 2025 tangible book value per share or overall 13.88 billion euros. Under Polish takeover law, a bidder does not need to make a mandatory takeover offer if it holds less than 50% of the votes of the target company. The Polish unit of Santander is the country's third largest bank by assets, and also one of the most profitable on the market that, unlike the euro zone with the European Central Bank's increasingly dovish sentiment, has been enjoying high interest rates for more than two years. Santander said it intended to distribute 50% of the capital released from the sale to shareholders upon completion, which will be equivalent to a share buyback worth about 3.2 billion euros. This payout would accelerate the delivery of its up to 10 billion share buyback target for 2025 and 2026. Erste Group's funding of the acquisition is supported by the cancellation of a 700-million euro share buyback program, temporarily reduced dividend payout ratio and various balance sheet optimization measures, it said.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Spain's Santander sells 49% in Polish unit to Erste for $7.7 billion
By Jesús Aguado MADRID (Reuters) -Spain's Santander on Monday announced the sale of a 49% stake in its Polish unit Santander Bank Polska for around 6.8 billion euros ($7.70 billion) to Austria's Erste Group Bank. It also reached a deal to sell a 50% stake in Santander's Polish asset management business to Erste for 200 million euros. Santander and Erste also announced a strategic cooperation to leverage their respective strengths and footprint in corporate & Investment Banking (CIB), and to allow Erste to gain access to Santander's global payments platforms, the Spanish lender said. Santander said it intended to distribute 50% of the capital released from this sale to shareholders upon completion, which will be equivalent to a share buyback worth approximately 3.2 billion euros. This payout would accelerate the delivery of its up to 10 billion share buyback target out of the 2025 and 2026 earnings and anticipated excess capital. The euro zone biggest lender by market value also said that the funds released will give it more flexibility to invest in other markets where it already operates in Europe and the Americas and boost growth, increase network revenues and maximise customer and shareholder benefits. ($1 = 0.8833 euros)
Bloomberg
05-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Santander Sells 49% in Polish Unit to Erste for €6.8 Billion
Banco Santander SA agreed to sell 49% of its Polish unit to Erste Group Bank AG for about €6.8 billion ($7.7 billion), in one of the largest banking transactions in Europe in recent years. Erste also agreed to buy the 50% in the Polish asset manager TFI that's not already owned by the Polish unit from Santander for about €200 million, the two lenders said in separate statements on Monday.
Irish Independent
29-04-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
AIB's former Polish subsidiary valued at €14bn in new deal
Erste and Spain's Santander Bank announced the talks in separate statements on Monday, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report. The deal would see Erste acquiring a 49pc stake in Santander Bank Polska for around €7.3bn, based on the most recent stock price. That would value the bank – which under a previous name, Bank Zachodni, was majority owned by Ireland's AIB – at more than €14bn. The Irish bank was forced to sell its 70pc stake in its Polish subsidiary in 2011 to allay state aid concerns raised by its own €21bn bailout. AIB sold that stake for €3.1bn to Santander, which then bought up the remaining shares in the Polish bank and bolted on Kredy Bank, another Polish lender acquired from KBC Group, to create Santander Bank Polska. It is not clear if the talks will lead to an agreement, and completion of any transaction would be subject to closing conditions, the banks said. Santander said it had 'received interest from several parties'. Since AIB sold its stake in 2011, the Polish economy has been on a strong growth trajectory, boosting the value of the bank. Shares of Erste fell as much as 4.7pc in Vienna on news of the deal. Santander Bank Polska shares also declined. Under the proposed terms, Erste would effectively gain control of the Polish lender as its largest single shareholder despite not having a majority holding, people familiar with the matter said. ADVERTISEMENT By buying less than 50pc, Erste will avoid triggering a mandatory tender for the remaining shares in the bank. A deal between Vienna-based Erste and Spain's biggest bank would be one of the largest banking transactions in Europe in recent years. The deal would deliver on Erste Group chief executive officer Peter Bosek's ambitions to expand into Poland, made public after his return to Vienna last year from Luminor Group. Erste serves more than 16 million customers across seven European countries, making it one of the largest banks in central and eastern Europe. It currently operates a brokerage in Poland. Santander Bank Polska is Poland's third-largest lender with about 7.5 million customers. It posted record net income last year, and its shares are at an all-time high. A sale of much of Santander's stake in the Polish bank would be one of the biggest moves under executive chair Ana Botin to shift the strategic focus away from Europe. It could allow her to expand in other markets and potentially use proceeds for acquisitions or to help fund buybacks. The Spanish lender announced in February it intends to buy back €10bn of its shares over the next two years using excess capital and earnings. Any transaction would require regulatory approval from the European Central Bank and the national banking authorities. That would likely be granted given that it is a deal within the European Union and wouldn't create a dominant market position or any other distortions, some of the people said.
