Lahun walks away from the acquisition of Universal Bank

Photo: Aleksey Solodunov

A company from the Delta Bank group rejected the acquisition of Universal Bank, a source close to the negotiations told Capital. One source claims the National Bank of Ukraine refused to issue permission for the transaction, while another source said the company failed to find the money required for the acquisition. Yesterday’s statement of the press service of Universal Bank could be viewed as an indirect proof that the company refused to go through with the acquisition. “Soon Eurobank – mother group of Universal Bank – will publish an announcement about the bank’s further strategy, the group in Ukraine and information that was earlier disseminated on the consent to the possibility of the bank’s sale to Delta Bank shareholders,” informed the press service of Universal Bank. Capital failed to obtain a commentary of the main owner of Delta Bank Mykola Lahun and also press services of Delta Bank and Universal Bank before the latest issue of the newspaper was posted.

Stabilization measures

“The NBU did not grant permission for this transaction. How can the central bank issue a stabilization loan to the bank and then allow acquisition of the bank?” says chairman of the board of a medium-size bank, who requested anonymity.

As a reminder, on September 12 the board allocated a UAH 2 bn stabilization loan to two financial institutions, namely PrivatBank and Delta Bank. This was a forced measure aimed at increasing the liquidity of the banks as they seriously suffered from early withdrawal of deposits by individuals. In H1 the outflow of hryvnia deposits in Delta Bank amounted to UAH 1.2 bn.

First Deputy CEO at PromInvestbank Vyacheslav Yutkin believes that the refusal of the company from the Delta Bank group to acquire Universal Bank is a logical decision driven by market factors. “Today, the banking sector of Ukraine is going through a serious crisis and is void of investment attractiveness. The acquisition of Universal Bank would have required additional capital investments from Delta Bank. Clearly, the management opted to maintain the bank’s liquidity during the period of instability on the market,” he said.

Big appetite

On August 14, a company of the Delta Bank group signed a deal with Greek Eurobank Ergasias S. A. on the acquisition of its Ukrainian daughter bank – Universal Bank and Ukrainian assets – for EUR 95 mn. It was planned that the deal would be closed by the end of the year after all required approvals of the NBU and the Anti-monopoly Committee are received. The press service of Delta Bank then announced that Universal Bank would be renamed two months after the deal is closed. “The buyer may have different reasons for walking away from the deal: change of parameters of the transaction and change of strategy. The quality of an asset may substantially change from the moment of appraisal to the moment of closing the deal. Earlier, Alfa Bank also participated in the tender for acquisition of Universal Bank. At that time, we were ready to close the deal. If we receive an offer on acquisition of this asset, we will closely consider it,” commented President of Alfa Bank (Ukraine) Oleksandr Lukanov.

Lahun today is one of few buyers on the Ukrainian banking market. Over the past two years, he acquired Kreditprombank, Swedbank and indirectly consolidated 100% of shares in Astra Bank. In the future, these assets will be consolidated in Delta Bank. Last September, Lahun was close to buying Odesa’s Marfin Bank, but the deal never went through.