The Austrian Volksbank International Group (VBI) has announced its plans to acquire one more bank with operations in the Central & Eastern parts of Ukraine. Volksbank earlier acquired Ukraine’s Elektronbank.
The press office of the Volksbank has confirmed the Group’s intention to acquire another Ukrainian asset. The investment amount has not been revealed though. The VBI’s representatives stressed out that following the world financial crisis erupted last summer, prices for financial institutions in Central and Eastern Europe have stabilized.
The Volksbannk International Group acquired the Western Ukrainian Elektronbank for EUR 57 million in the beginning of 2007. And, to continue expansion in the Ukrainian market, the Group is now looking for a financial institution which would balance out the geographic representation of the Group in the industrial central and eastern regions of Ukraine.
Volksbank International Group have other assets outside Austria. It controls ten banks in Central and Eastern Europe including two in Bosnia, Hungary, Romanian, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Croatia and Ukraine. The Group’s assets by 2006 results were EUR 6.7 billion. In November 2007 VBI had 524 branches and over 5 thousand employees with the balance amount reaching EUR 9.9 billion.