J&T Arch Investments, a fund of qualified investors, has received approval from the Czech National Bank to acquire a 19.99 percent stake in Moneta Money Bank. Its stake in the bank will soon exceed 10 percent. The fund, which bought 8.89 percent from Petrus Advisers in July, plans to complete the second part of the previously announced transaction and buy the remaining 1.1 percent within days.
“The completion of the transaction with Petrus Advisers, together with the earlier purchases, takes our stake to 10.37 per cent. The approval granted by the CNB gives us room to increase our position to a maximum of 19.99 per cent. Potential exceedance of this threshold is subject to further approval by the central bank,” said J&T Chief Investment Officer Adam Tomis.
J&T Arch Investments is the main investment platform of the J&T Group. The fund invests in businesses, projects and partnerships that the group has built over the past 25 years. The fund manages not only the assets of the founders of the J&T Group, but also private and institutional investors.
Moneta Money Bank, formerly GE Money Bank, had 1.5 million customers, making it the fourth largest bank in the Czech Republic, and 2,799 employees at the end of this year’s third quarter. The bank is also one of the largest companies traded on the Prague Stock Exchange.
The largest shareholder of Moneta is the financial group PPF. The latter sought to merge Moneta with its Air Bank group. The deal to merge parts of PPF, which includes Air Bank, Czech and Slovak Home Credit and Benxy (Zonky), with Moneta Money Bank was approved by Moneta’s shareholders in December 2021. The plan fell through this spring. At the time, PPF and Moneta cited negative economic developments, which change the parameters of the originally intended merger, or changes to the central bank’s capital requirements for banks in the Czech Republic as reasons.
Source J&T and CTK
