Erste Bank CEO, A. Treichl, said in an interview for the today’s issue of the Euro weekly that:
Erste paid a high price for the Hungarian Postabank (EUR 400m) and that, until 2005, it would be unable to say whether it overpaid Postabank or not.
Erste intends to cut into OTP’s market share on the Hungarian market and to become the local No. 2.
While Erste remains uninterested in national-wide Polish banks, it newly considers a possible acquisition of a regional bank in Southern Poland.
Ceska sporitelna (Erste’s 98% subsidiary) will be hit by declining net interest margin in next three years as high-yield government bonds in CS portfolio (worth of EUR billions) are to mature soon (current yields on G-bonds are much lower). This seems as rather conservative outlook, Patria expects flat margins. Negative.
Although he expects CS’s loan book to grow by 15% annually in coming years (Patria expects 10% growth), it is not enough to offset the above-mentioned dip in G-bond yields.