UniCredit Offers to Buy Greece’s Stake in Alpha Bank
- Lenders strike distribution deal, agree to merge Romania units
- Greek government adviser, central bank welcome offer
An Alpha Bank AE bank branch in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Photographer: Konstantinos Tsakalidis/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
UniCredit SpA offered to buy the Greek state’s holding in Alpha Bank and agreed to acquire Alpha’s Romanian unit, in the first strategic deal struck under Chief Executive Officer Andrea Orcel.
Alpha Bank will receive €300 million in cash as part of the transaction for its business in Romania, which will be combined with UniCredit’s to create the third-largest lender by assets in that country. Alpha Bank will retain a 9.9% of the merged entity, according to a statement Monday.