October 5 (SeeNews) - Romania's Patria Bank [BSE:PBK], formerly known as Nextebank, said that it has signed a contract for selling a 245 million lei ($60 million/ 52 million euro) portfolio of non-performing loans to KRUK Group.
The transaction concerns about 9,800 contracts and it will be locally managed by KRUK Romania, Patria Bank said in a press release on Thursday.
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"With this transaction we release a stock of non-performing loans that resulted from the merger between the former Patria Bank and the former Banca Comerciala Carpatica, highlighting in this way a success that will contribute to achieving the business objectives and improving the profitability indicators, which already showed a positive trend starting with the second quarter of 2018," Patria Bank general director Bogdan Merfea said.
A new portfolio sale project will follow this transaction and it is expected to take place by the end of this year, targeting non-performing loans for individuals and companies, both secured and unsecured, Merfea added.
"In the second half of the year we observe an increasing willingness of Romanian banks to sell portfolios. Such transactions have been and will be an important element of effective and modern management of the financial sector in Romania," KRUK Romania general director Tomasz Ignaczak, said.
In late September, Patria Bank received the Romanian financial regulator's approval to increase its share capital by 100 million lei.
Patria Bank Romania is owned by Patria Bank Group, whose main shareholder is the Emerging Europe Accession Fund (EEAF) equity fund.
In April 2017, a Bucharest court approved the merger of Romanian lender Banca Comerciala Carpatica and its majority owner Patria Bank.
Patria Bank's shares traded flat at 0.0956 lei at 0923 CET on Friday on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB.
(1 euro=4.6684 lei)
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