Banks compete for strategic stakes in Amerbank

"One of the two is a Scandinavian bank," said AmerBank deputy president Wlodzimierz Paszkowski, not revealing other details. Currently AmerBank management is holding negotiations with the two first bidders. Paszkowski said that AmerBank may accept more than one strategic investor during the first round of bidding. "After some time one strategic investor may replace the others by increasing the bank's capital or by purchasing more shares," said Paszkowski. He added that yesterday both bidders filed an application to the National Bank of Poland (NBP) for approval to obtain 33% of votes at the AmerBank general shareholders meeting. Currently Belgium Bank Bruxelles de Lambert (BBL) is the largest investor in the bank with a 36.4% stake, granting it 21.6% of shareholders' votes. Yesterday BBL as well applied to the NBP for approval to increase its voting share to 25%. (Prawo i Gospodarka, page 4)