Venture capital investment fund Regent Pacific headquartered in London at the last moment joined the Dutch bank Rabobank and the Romanian-American Investment Fund for the privatisation of Banca Agricola (Agricultural Bank- BA), and the new consortium is most likely to submit the final offer during the following two days, sources close to the transaction told Ziarul Financiar.
According to the above-quoted sources, should authorities not accept the offer, the bank's privatisation will most probably be resumed next year, a variant that was discussed last week, also with representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
At this moment, the idea of a merger with CEC (the Romanian Savings Bank) was also given up, a variant that had been prepared as a last salvation from liquidation in case negotiations with possible investors had failed.
Anyway, the merger with CEC would have been the most complex scenario, since it would have required the change of the memorandum concluded with the IMF, which clearly stipulates that Banca Agricola must be privatised or liquidated.
Regent Pacific entered the game after, two weeks ago, the Agricultural Bank of Greece decided to withdraw from this privatisation process.
According to market sources, the Greek bank's interest was rather focused on potential businesses developed in Romania by companies with Greek capital (see the failure of the contract for the acquisition of Societatea Nationala "Tutunul Romanesc"- Romanian National Tobacco Company- by the Greek company Michailides, one of the bank's important clients, as well as the conflict unfolded between Cosmorom and its competitors on the Romanian mobile phone market).
This week is decisive for Banca Agricola, as there are only four days left until the second deadline for submitting a firm offer is exceeded. The bank's situation depends on Government's decision to capitalise it by approximately 3,000 billion lei (approximately 150 million dollars).
On August 8, BA representatives were misled, being convinced that a firm offer for taking over the majority stake would be submitted, which left them unprepared for a different situation. This time however, several scenarios were taken into account.
In case privatisation fails, the first option is the bank's recapitalisation (by approximately 150 million dollars), but the Government declined to make any comment on a possible capital infusion at the moment. Another possibility would be the bank's effective liquidation, but in this case costs would amount to about the double of those involved by capitalisation.
Lucian Croitoru, the PM's advisor on budget and fiscal matters and NBR (National Bank of Romania) governor's councillor, believes that BA should be shut down if not privatised.
"I would advise the Premier to shut down the bank in case he doesn't manage to privatise it," Croitoru said. He added that BA needed a solution involving the least expenses possible for the state budget.
"If no contract is concluded before the established deadline, that means BA cannot be privatised," Croitoru concluded.
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