Giedrius Simonavičius, a spokesman for the central Bank of Lithuania, and Adomas Audickas, temporary administrator of Ūkio Bankas, refused to make any comments.
On February 13, preliminary talks on the takeover of Ūkio Bankas’ liabilities, assets, rights, and transactions were opened with Šiaulių Bankas. Swedbank also expressed interest in the assets of failed bank yet scrapped the idea later, sources told BNS.
“We are watching and assessing the situation but we have not made one or another decision yet,” Andrius Vilkancas, a spokesman for DNB Bankas, told BNS.
Ieva Kulvinskaitė, the head of communication at SEB Bankas, Lithuania’s largest commercial bank, told BNS that the bank had not yet decided whether to take part in the reorganization of Ūkio Bankas.
“At this point in time, we still cannot say whether it would be interesting for us, or not, since it is too premature to make one or another statement. We are analyzing information and then we will decide on what to do next,” she told BNS.
“We are interested in everything that can be acquired, that can bring us economic benefit,” Andrius Barstys, chairman and CEO of Finasta, told BNS.
The Bank of Lithuania reported on Friday that Audickas had approached 14 banks and foreign bank branches active in Lithuania, asking them to notify him whether they would take part in preliminary talks on the potential takeover of liabilities, assets, rights, and transactions of Ūkio Bankas. Three more banks expressed initial interest in potential reorganization of the bank and were asked to notify the temporary administrator in the near time whether they were interested in taking part in further stages of this process.
The remaining banks sent no answers or said that they were not interested.
According to data made available by the Lithuanian Banks’ Association, SEB Bankas ranked first among Lithuania’s commercial banks with 22.549 billion litas (EUR 6.53b) worth of assets at the end of September, and DNB Bankas was third with the assets worth 11.264 billion litas. Finasta held 353.658 million litas in assets at the end of that month.
Ūkio Bankas, with the assets worth 4.094 billion litas at the end of the third quarter, then ranked sixth in the country.
SEB Bankas is part of Sweden’s financial group Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, and DNB Bankas is controlled by Norway’s financial group DNB. Finasta has until now mainly focused on investment banking services, and Snoras’ bankruptcy administrator is currently looking for a potential buyer of the company.
The temporary administrator has been obliged to submit conclusions and proposals pertaining to possibilities and ways of restoring Ūkio Bankas’ operations on February 18 at the latest.
