The bank should be taken over by Lithuania-registered international consortium controlled by Belgium’s businessmen, the portal eversus.lt reported citing sources.
Andrius Barštys, Finasta’s CEO, told the portal that he had already met with the future investor.
“True, we have met with all potential investors. We understand that it’s those who pay the piper that call the tune. Time will show what will happen but our communication with the investor has been smooth for the meantime... The investor that has been chosen is not the owner yet, but it has certain rights to get information. There is certain information we are exchanging, there are restrictions on deals and similar things,” Barštys said in an interview to eversus.lt.
Speaking about the reports that the central bank had not received an application from Finasta’s buyers by the end of last week, Barštys said that the investor had not filed an application formally so far. “Lots of documents have to be collected, so this process takes quite some time. The documents shall also be translated into Lithuanian, certified by the notary and so on and so forth. I am happy that the bank attracted big interest and the price will be high enough.”
The authorities sought to close the deal as soon as possible, he said. The bank’s capital was adequate now, Barštys said adding that, in his view, the new owner would provide extra capital if necessary.
“Finasta’s capital adequacy ratio now is 14.8 percent (as compared with the Bank of Lithuania’s required rate of at least 8 percent), and the liquidity ratio is 85.4 percent (30 pct),” he said.
“Despite Snoras’ situation, this year is the best for Finasta in terms of revenues – if compared with the statistical data for the first nine months of last year, the revenues increased by 11 percent. Moreover, the portfolio of fixed-term deposits soared by 49 percent from October 2011. We managed to stop customers’ exodus after... two difficult weeks after Snoras’ nationalization...,” Barštys said.
The workforce of Finasta group in Lithuania and Latvia shrank by about one-fifth after Snoras’ bankruptcy, to 144 at present.
The bank was established by the investment company Invalda, which sold it to Snoras group in 2009.
