VILNIUS - Snoras, one of Lithuania's fastest growing banks, has confirmed its acquisition of two small Russian banks 's Investbank and Grankombank 's as part of its bold expansion strategy.
The transactions would be carried out as soon as Russia and Lithuania's regulatory authorities granted permission and the international rating agency Fitch provided information to Investbank and Grankombank.
Management of the two Russian banks are to remain unchanged, although the scale of operations would be expanded considerably.
Snoras Chairman Raimondas Baranauskas said the bank, which is controlled by Russia's Konversbank, should take measures to implement an adequate increase of its capital.
Last year, Snoras acquired 83 percent of Latvijas Krajbanka, which will debut on the Riga Stock Exchange later this year, Baranauskas said.
The Lithuanian bank is also negotiating the purchase of a controlling interest in Cypriot Universal Bank or another unnamed bank, and is searching for possible acquisition targets in Estonia and the U.K..
Konversbank, which controls Snoras via its Luxembourg-registered Conversgroup Holding Company, aims to boost its holding in the Lithuanian bank to 66.7 percent, from 49.9 percent, by the end of 2006.
Assets of Investbank, which is active in the Kaliningrad exclave, amounted to 1.5 billion rubles (45.7 million euros) as of late Sept. 2005. Deposits comprised 857.1 million rubles, while the loan portfolio totaled 932.2 million rubles.
The bank posted 21.89 million rubles in earnings for the first three quarters of 2005.
Grankombank, which offers banking services in Yekaterinburg, had 3.4 billion rubles in assets as of late September. Deposits made up 2 billion rubles, while the loan portfolio was 2 billion rubles.
