“We continue our work with Šiaulių Bankas, a long-standing partner of the EBRD in Lithuania. As always, the EBRD will review opportunities as they arise,” Anthony Williams, Head of Media Relations at EBRD, told the news agency Bloomberg.
According to Bloomberg, in its Lithuania strategy document issued last month, the EBRD said that the failure of Snoras in November 2011 showed a need “to enhance the governance and the financial strength of local banks, possibly through assistance in consolidation”.
“The bank will consider, primarily through the EBRD’s existing shareholding in Šiaulių Bankas, opportunities to play an active role in the process,” it said in the policy document.
Algirdas Butkus, a shareholder and board chairman of Šiaulių Bankas, told BNS on Wednesday that it was possible to see logic in such a combination.
Butkus owns a 4.53-percent stake in the bank and is part of the shareholders’ group, which includes the EBRD and private investors and owns 53.17 percent of the bank’s authorized capital.
Vladimir Romanov, the owner of a 64.92 percent stake in Ūkio Bankas, told BNS that he was unaware about any possible merger.
A plan to merge Ūkio Bankas and Šiaulių Bankas is being worked out by the Bank of Lithuania, the eversus.lt online news site has reported. Unofficial sources say that the central bank is the author of this complicated plan to merge the two banks and that it has given the EBRD, single largest shareholder of Šiaulių Bankas since 2005, a key role in this process.
