PRIME-TASS. Bank Pushkino, registered in Moscow suburbs and a Top 200 bank, mulls merging with Bank Kedr, but no final decisions have been adopted so far, Pavel Chernyavsky, Bank Pushkino’s first deputy management board chairman and Bank Kedr’s co-owner, told Prime-TASS.
“A decision on the banks’ reorganization is a matter of the bank’s general shareholders meeting. To date, the shareholders have not yet adopted such decisions. At the same time, I review the merger as a logical and the most efficient way of forging a stable regional bank. In my opinion, this would be the best way to execute Bank Pushkino’s strategy geared towards establishing a large universal regional bank with the impeccable client services," said Chernyavsky who controls 18.75% of Bank Kedr and around 1.3% of Bank Pushkino.
“I can say that the banks’ shareholders do not rule out this scenario, but a final decision will be made taking into account what all parties concerned think," he added.
Meanwhile, Bank Kedr said “no mergers, acquisitions or restructuring measures are under way at the moment”.
“The board of directors adopted no decision on the issue. Currently Bank Kedr is able to dynamically expand and ramp up profit on its own," said in a press release posted on the bank’s website.
Bank Pushkino has already amassed some M&A experience as last year the bank took over AB Finance.
Bank Pushkino and Bank Kedr are comparable in terms of assets as in January — June 2012 the former’s assets totaled roughly Rub 28 bln and the latter’s equaled Rub 29.2 bln.
