Hypo Alpe Adria Bank (not) to withdraw from all countries of former Yugoslavia

Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank Belgrade has announced that the claims regarding its withdrawal from the Serbian market are absolutely not true.

Such information was announced by the media due to a wrong interpretation of a statement of Gottwald Kranebitter, chairman of the Managing Board of Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank International AG, about future operations of the Hypo Group in the region of former Yugoslavia.

Namely, it is not true that Mr. Kranebitter said in an interview for Austria's Trend magazine that the Hypo Group was going to leave the countries of former Yugoslavia, reads the Bank's statement.

The truth is that the Hypo Group has a strategic plan to find a new owner until late 2014 in order for the state of Austria, current owner of that group, to withdraw from that position. The region of Southeast Europe represents a very important part of the Hypo Group's operations, and there are absolutely no reasons for the Bank to leave this territory.

The plan for 2012 is to continue to expand the network of the Bank's offices by opening another eight new ones. Also, Hypo Alpe Adria will be financing the projects of several public institutions in the following period and keep investing in corporate social responsibility projects, reads the statement.

As the media announced today, Mr. Kranebitter told Austria's Trend magazine that nationalized Austrian lender Hypo Alpe Adria planned to sell its banking network in southeastern Europe sooner than planned, as the bank struggled to find buyers for units in Austria and Italy.

"We will prepare the network for a sale by mid-2012. Originally, we had planned to do it later. But the current situation does not allow us to stick to dogmas," Gottwald Kranebitter was quoted as saying by Austrian magazine Trend.

The bank in October said it had put on hold the sale of banking units in Austria and Italy given depressed prices for such assets.

Hypo Alpe Adria has been trying to extend a March 2012 deadline for raising around 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion) in fresh capital that regulators propose it would need to strengthen its balance sheet as well as to absorb worst-case shocks.

Austria took control of Hypo in 2009 to avoid a collapse that could have shaken central and eastern Europe.