By Margit Feher and Veronika Gulyas
BUDAPEST--Hungary plans to sell its recently purchased MKB Bank,
possibly even taking it public through the stock exchange, after a
reorganization and asset cleanup by the central bank over the next
up to 18 months, Prime Minister Viktor Orban and central bank
Governor Gyorgy Matolcsy said on Thursday.
"If the state owns a bank it gives rise to mistrust thus the
government only takes up a role in it to support its reorganization
and not for the sake of permanent state ownership," the premier
said at a press conference.
Hungary's government has reached its goal that over 50% of the
country's banking system should be in domestic hands, Mr. Orban
said.
The reorganization and strengthening of the banking sector is
now one of the main economic tasks of the governing Fidesz party
during its second-term in power, Mr. Orban added.
Hungary is in talks with Austrian banks Erste Group Bank AG
(EBS.VI) and Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI.VI), which both
have major banking units in Hungary, about "strategic cooperation,"
the prime minister confirmed Thursday, but he declined to provide
details.
The central bank governor Gyorgy Matolcsy said the central bank
will provide MKB Bank with liquidity should it be needed and clean
up its asset portfolio to prepare it for privatization, which may
take the form of a public listing on a stock exchange.
The central bank aims to position MKB among the top three "best
banks" by the end of the reorganization period, Mr. Matolcsy
added.
Germany's state-controlled lender BayernLB sold its unprofitable
Hungarian unit MKB Bank Zrt. for 55 million euros ($68.5 million)
to the Hungarian government in July this year. The government also
bought recently Budapest Bank Zrt. for an undisclosed sum from GE
Capital, an arm of General Electric.
It's too early to say whether the government would want to merge
MKB Bank with Budapest Bank, Mr. Orban said.
Write to Margit Feher at margit.feher@wsj.com; Twitter:
@margitfeher and Veronika Gulyas at veronika.gulyas@wsj.com;
Twitter: @VeronikaGulyas1