Greece’s Piraeus Bank sells Albanian subsidiary

Piraeus Bank concluded the sale of its Albanian subsidiary Tirana Bank to Balfin and Komercijana Banka, boosting its core equity capital, Greece’s largest lender said on Monday.

Piraeus said it sold its 98.3 percent stake in Tirana Bank for 57.3 million euros ($65.10 million) after getting the green light from authorities, including Albania’s central bank and Greece’s bank rescue fund.

Established in 1996, Tirana Bank was the first private bank to start operations in Albania. It has 39 branches and 71 ATMs across the country. Komercijana Banka is North Macedonia’s largest lender, with assets in excess of 1.7 billion euros.

Piraeus, which is 26.2 percent owned by the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF), said the divestment will boost its core equity tier 1 capital (CET-1) by 11 basis points.

UniCredit advised Piraeus on the sale. [Reuters]