After reporting a €493m loss for 2014, shares in Europe’s second largest lender, Raiffeisen Bank International, jumped by 8 percent on the Vienna Stock Exchange. The company announced an in-depth restructuring plan earlier this week. The plan includes a sell-off of some of its non-core assets, including the Polish Polbank network. Poland’s eighth lender based on assets, Polbank, is set to change hands in 2015 or 2016.
The lender says the move to offload most of its CEE businesses aims to improve the group’s capital reserves. News first hit in December that the group planned to put its Polish arm on the market. Raiffeisen has already put its Slovenian network on the market as well its Internet banking arm, Zuno, active on the Czech and Slovak markets.
As a part of its new strategy, RBI plans to reduce its risk weighted assets (RWA) over the next two years in Russia and Ukraine by 20 percent and 30 percent respectively. It has €8.4bn in assets in Russia and €3bn in Ukraine. Global media are speculating that the bank may also downgrade its activities on the Hungarian market and possibly withdraw from the Asian market by the end of 2017.
