January 16 (SeeNews) - Hungary's OTP Bank has completed financially the acquisition of Societe Generale Expressbank, the Bulgarian subsidiary of France's Societe Generale Group, and other units of the group in Bulgaria, OTP Bank said on Wednesday.
The integration process is expected to be completed in 2020, OTP Bank said in a statement.
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The acquisition agreement between Societe Generale and DSK Bank, the wholly-owned Bulgarian subsidiary of OTP, was signed on August 1, as OTP agreed to acquire the Albanian and Bulgarian units of the French banking group.
In Bulgaria, OTP is acquiring through DSK 99.74% of Societe Generale Expressbank and its units Societe Generale Factoring, Sogelease Bulgaria and Regional Urban Development Fund, as well as direct control over insurer Sogelife Bulgaria.
Documents entered into Bulgaria's commercial register in December show that OTP Bank has increased the capital of DSK Bank by 1.17 billion levs ($683 million/600 million euro) to ensure DSK's capital adequacy following the acquisition of Societe Generale Expressbank. DSK Bank's capital was hiked to 1.33 billion levs, with OTP Bank having subscribed for all 117,349,800 new DSK Bank shares of 10 levs in par value each.
DSK Bank received a preliminary approval for the deal from the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) in November, followed by approvals from the Financial Supervision Commission and the Commission for Protection of Competition in December.
DSK Bank, a wholly-owned subsidiary of OTP Bank, was Bulgaria's second largest lender by assets at the end of November, while Societe Generale Expressbank was the seventh biggest, according to the latest available data from Bulgaria's central bank.
Societe Generale Expressbank has a market share of some 6.4%, OTP Bank said.
OTP Bank has been present in Bulgaria since 2003.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)
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