Italian, Greek banks interested in ABA

TIRANA, Oct.19 – Albanian and foreign media reporeted this week the interested expressed from Italian and Greek banks to buy or merge with the American Bank of Albania. Gazeta Shqiptare reported that Italian bank San Paolo-IMI, owner of the Italian-Albanian Bank (BIA), was the most probable candidate for becoming a major equity-holder of the American bank after the first phase of the negotiations. That process was expected to be completed by the end of this year. San Paolo-IMI is one of the biggest European Banks after its merger with the Italian bank Intesa. Another important competitor was the greek ATE bank. ATEbank is interested in buying a majority stake in the American Bank of Albania (ABA), the Greek bank said in a stock market filing. “The process is at an early stage. Should developments unfold, ATEbank will issue relevant statements,” the bank said. There have been rumors that Austria’s Raiffeisen International were also in talks to buy ABA. But that has been officially denied from the bank.
Michael Grannoff, head of the Albanian-American Enterprise Fund that owns the bank, was reluctant to mention potential future institutions. He said that the transfer of ownership will not influence the clients in any negative way. On the contrary, the process would only strengthen the capacities of the bank and widen the service range offered. According to their website, the American Bank of Albania presently serves 70.000 clients and owns an asset portfolio of $586 million. Its net profit for the last year was over $6million. It is operative in 16 branches in Albania and in 2 branches in Greece.