NKBM Banka gets new owner by end-2016

Slovenia intends to sell Nova Kreditna Banka Maribor (NKBM) by the end of 2016. The country has picked Lazard Freres among four companies that submitted a bid for the supply of consulting services in the NKBM sale process to sign an agreement with, the state-owned fund SOD announced in a release.

NKBM is the second largest bank in Slovenia. Since late last year, when the government recapitalized it, the bank is 100-percent owned by the state, the web portal Biznis.hr reports.

The state-owned fund SOD, which manages the NKBM sale process, announced that an agreement had been signed with the French consulting company that was going to choose a method and time frame for the sale, coordinate the process of preparing the documentation and collecting the bids as well as all other processes leading to the sale of that bank.

As announced, the most serious candidates for the acquisition of NKBM are Hungarian bank OTP and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).