The eurozone's biggest bank Santander is doubling its bet on Poland, Europe's most resilient economy, by taking over a unit of Belgian lender KBC to create a business worth about 5 billion euros ($6.7 billion). Spain's Santander will combine KBC's Kredyt Bank with Bank Zachodni WBK to turn the unit it bought just last year into Poland's No 3 lender, trailing only the state-owned PKO and UniCredit's Pekao.
"It's a smart deal because Santander gains scale and synergies with minimum capital outflow," said Andrea Filtri, analyst at Mediobanca. With pressure to raise capital levels, KBC is not the only bank to sell assets in Poland, the European Union's sole economy to avoid recession since the start of the global financial crisis in 2008.
Allied Irish Banks sold Bank Zachodni itself to Santander last year. Under the deal with KBC, Zachodni will issue 6.96 of its own shares for every 100 in Kredyt Bank, valuing the KBC unit at $1.37 billion based on current share prices, which is about a third more than Kredyt Bank's value before Tuesday. Kredyt Bank shares had surged 17.7 percent to 14.08 zlotys by 1320 GMT, and KBC's up 6.4 percent.