MADRID, Oct.21 (Reuters) – Spain’s Caixabank (CABK.MC) announced Thursday that it plans to sell its entire 9.92% stake in Austrian lender Erste Group Bank (ERST.VI).

The stake currently has a market value of around € 1.65 billion ($ 1.92 billion), taking into account the Austrian lender’s 429.8 million outstanding shares and Thursday’s closing price of 38.76 euros per share, according to data from Refinitiv.

The lender said that a possible full divestiture of its stake in Erste on the basis of the share price as of September 30 would have an insignificant impact on its results and would have a positive effect of 15 basis points on its core tier ratio. -1.

Like other Spanish and European banks, Caixabank, which finalized the acquisition of Bankia in March, is trying to comply with stricter solvency requirements and regulators are asking banks to focus on their core business.

The sale of its stake could take place in different stages since Caixabank holds an unhedged 5.42% stake in EBS, which it could sell to certain pre-identified buyers.

Caixabank also said it plans to settle underlying equity swaps at 4.5% of its stake by delivering the underlying stocks to the equity swap counterparties.

Caixabank said the divestiture of Caixabank’s entire stake in Erste Bank would ultimately depend on market conditions.

($ 1 = 0.8596 euros)

Report by Jesús Aguado

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