Italian financial group Intesa Sanpaolo SpA is in negotiations to acquire Romanian lender First Bank from the American investment fund JC Flowers, sources who wished to remain anonymous told Bloomberg.

The Italian group is discussing the terms of the transaction, which could value First Bank at around EUR 200 million (USD 216 million). The negotiations are ongoing, and there is no certainty that an agreement will be reached, the sources claim.

The spokespersons of Intesa, JC Flowers and First Bank did not want to comment on the information.

Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, the largest bank in Italy, has a subsidiary in Romania, which has assets of approximately EUR 1.55 billion and over 60,000 customers. First Bank provides a diversified range of products and financial services to retail customers, SMEs and large companies, and its assets stood at EUR 1.56 billion at the end of 2022.

JC Flowers acquired First Bank from Piraeus Bank in 2018. A year later, it took over smaller rival Leumi, which was incorporated into the First Bank brand. In January, Bloomberg announced that JC Flowers wanted to sell First Bank and had preliminary discussions with UniCredit SpA, but no agreement was reached.

Separately, in July, UniCredit decided not to continue negotiations for the acquisition of the Romanian subsidiary of OTP Bank Nyrt.

andrei@romania-insider.com

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