Turkish Halkbank takes over Cacanska

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Turkish based Halkbank signed Friday the agreement on buying shares of Cacanska banka a.d. from the Republic of Serbia, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Finance Corporation and Beogradska banka a.d. in bankruptcy.

The Republic of Serbia, EBRD and IFC have defined in the Shareholders Agreement their mutual rights and obligations, as well as the privatization process of Cacanska banka. In line with the aforementioned, the process of sale of the share package of those three shareholders was initiated in November of 2013. Beogradska banka a.d. in bankruptcy joined the sale process.

By the Sale-purchase agreement, Halkbank, as the buyer, took upon itself the obligation to pay EUR 10.1 million for 139,680 shares owned by those four shareholders, which represents 76.74% of the shareholders capital of Cacanska banka.

Besides paying the purchase price, Halkbank plans additional investments to secure the further development and growth of Cacanska banka. In addition to the recapitalization and expansion of the business network, investments are planned alsso in the IT, credit cards, development of the private banking segment, etc.

Cacanska banka is the regional bank that has a network of 14 branches and 9 sub-branches covering primarily the territory of Western and Central Serbia. Cacanska banka offers a wide range of banking products and services to both the retail and corporate clientele, whereas it is focused to the segment of small and medium enterprises. The bank has 385 employees. With the total assets of EUR 263 million and the market share of 1.1%, Cacanska banka ranks 18th at the local banking market.