Advent International/EBRD €200 million acquisition of Hypo Group Alpe Adria

Overview:

• Funds controlled by Advent International and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) have acquired Hypo Group Alpe-Adria, the Southeast Europe (SEE) network of  the Austrian Hypo Alpe Adria Bank.
• The price of the transaction is around €200 million.
• The network, which includes 1.1.5 million customers across Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia and Montenegro, has 245 branches and a balance sheet of around €8.4 billion.
• State guarantees, valued at around €2.2 billion, over assets held in the accounts, will remain in place, according to Advent.
• The deal is part of a wider winding down procedure of Austria's Hypo Alpe Adria, which was nationalised in 2009, before being converted into a bad bank - Heta Asset Resolution.
• A similar deal was struck in Italy where Bain Capital acquired HETA Asset Resolution Italia.
  
• The sale of the SEE network was initiated by a European Commission ruling that state aid could only be provided to the parent bank if the network was sold by the end of 2015.
• The SEE network will continue to trade under the bank's former name Hypo Group Alpe-Adria.
• Citigroup acted as financial adviser to Advent and the EBRD. Deutsche Bank acted as manager of the sales process.

Sam Duke - Editor