The price for 69.9% in CEC (Savings Bank) may be lower than one billion euros, but there is no way it can be lower than 500 million euros, says Eugen Radulescu (photo), CEC chairman. The 500 million-euro value was recently suggested by the Merrill Lynch analysts, yet Radulescu says that estimate does not take into account the changes CEC has gone through over the past year. He blamed the market for being stuck in the old perception of the immobility of the old savings bank. The CEC chairman also says that the current configuration of the bank would not need any more than 100-200 million euros in investments for modernisation, deeming the 300 million euros mentioned on the market as an exaggerated amount. CEC's privatisation committee will open the financial bids submitted by the National Bank of Greece, Raiffeisen and OTP next Tuesday, and is to decide who gets to submit improved bids. "What is sold through CEC is a growth potential. Investments are needed to back the growth process, indeed, but the mechanism is already moving, the IT infrastructure basis is in place and we are starting to bite some of the market: we've reached almost 4% of the lending market," Eugen Radulescu said. The IT system is not operating smoothly yet, freezing at times throughout the day in Bucharest due to the large number of operations. At any rate, few investors are still seeing the potential Radulescu touts as easy to capitalise on - Dexia and EFG Eurobank decided to withdraw after having seen the changes at CEC based on the data they were allowed to see in the data room in the April-May period.
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