Miodrag Kostic’s Company Agri Europe Cyprus Wants to Buy 17% in Addiko Bank

Agri Europe Cyprus Ltd, a company of the Serbian businessman Miodrag Kostic, wants to buy a minority share in Addiko Bank, which is headquartered in Vienna and which specializes in retail banking. Kostic is striving to increase his share in the banking market of Europe, Bloomberg writes.

Agri Europe has sought to purchase a stake of around 17% in Addiko Bank through a public takeover bid, as shown by the data from the bid which Bloomberg has had insight into. On the other hand, Agri Europe has bought a stake of 10% in Addiko Bank, previously controlled by Kostic.

This bid estimates the value of the bank at EUR 341 million, that is, EUR 17.5 million per share with dividend. That is 15.5% more than the price at the closing on Friday. The value of the shares of Addiko Bank jumped 6.3% in Vienna on Monday.

Addiko used to operate as part of Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank. In the Balkans, it offers consumer credits, and in Austria, it operates as a retail bank. It has recently announced plans to open a digital bank in Romania.

– Addiko is a financial institution with an interesting business model and geographic diversification, which fits perfectly into our intention to indirectly increase our exposure in the Balkans, a region that we believe has a high economic growth – the chairman of Agri Europe, Romeo Collina, said for Bloomberg.

Kostic’s Agri Europe is active in the field of acquisitions after the attempts to buy parts of the sanctioned Russian Sberbank. It currently owns AIK Bank and Eurobank Direktna in Serbia, as well as Gorenjska Banka in Slovenia.

Agri Europe has until April 10 to notify the Austrian acquisition approval authority about its bid, which will then consider the bid before it is published, the authority announced on its website on Monday. The company has hired N.M. Rothschild & Sons Ltd. as financial adviser for that job.

In an answer to Bloomberg, Addiko said that it was “considering the situation and will continue in line with the obligations within the Austrian acquisition codex, including giving a statement after the publishing of the official tendering bid.”

The price-to-book (P/B) ratio is 0.4, compared to the competition, for which it is 0.9, which suggests that the share is undervalued. However, the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is 6.4, which is close to the competition average of 6.1. That would mean that the company is valued based on its current earnings, as are the competing banks, such as UniCredit, Intesa, Raiffeisen, Erste and OTP.

Addiko bank ad Beograd

Agri Europe Cyprus Ltd

Addiko Bank

Miodrag Kostić

Romeo Collina

retail banking