Hungary’s top bank OTP used to have five major targets for acquisitions across Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. The Romanian Savings House remains its sole major opportunity in the region after OTP lost its case with the other four – one in Croatia, one in Serbia and two in Ukraine.
According to Portfolio.hu, OTP Bank failed last week to guarantee the take-over of Croatian bank Splitska, when it had lost its expansion efforts with Ukrainian-based UkrSibBank and UkrSotsBank, as well as the Serbian bank Vojvodjanska.
Portfolio.hu says its recent failures in Croatia, Serbia and Ukraine show the OTP experience in transforming large banking groups in Hungary and Bulgaria might have come to a halt.
But in Romania, the publication notes, OTP not only runs for the take-over of the Savings House (CEC), but it has embraced an organic development policy trying to establish a territorial network based on its subsidiary in the country, the former Robank, with its 0.64% market share.
Besides CEC, OTP’s chances stay in possible acquisitions of smaller banks accompanied with an organic growth over the coming five years, or in its penetration on markets that cannot be connected directly to EEC markets, such as Turkey.
