Erste Bank sees room for expansion in CEE but no immediate acquisitions - CEO

PRAGUE (Thomson Financial) - Austrian lender Erste Bank aims to become the main retail bank of central and eastern Europe (CEE), and possibly make further acquisitions in the region although there are no immediate targets, Erste's chief executive Andreas Treichl was quoted as saying.

Speaking in an interview with Czech weekly Ekonom, Treichl said there's still room to expand in the CEE region.

'Our real target is to be (the main) retail bank of central and eastern Europe,' Treichl said. 'We can still expand our position, there's still room.'

'If we find anything interesting which belongs to this region and it'll be for a reasonable price, then we'll invest.'

However, Treichl said he can't see any immediate acquisition targets.

'At the moment we are concentrating on banks that we already have. We aren't looking for anything (new).'

Talking about the Bulgarian market, Treichl said: 'There are no convenient banks there now that we would like to buy.'

Commenting on the global credit crisis, Treichl said growing loan spreads in developing markets upped companies' and governments' costs and worsened the mood in these markets.

This applies also for Romania where Erste is the largest foreign investor, he said. 'We invested a lot of money there. So the bad mood has reflected in the (declining) shares (price).'

Shares in Vienna and Prague-listed Erste have shed almost 25 pct year to date.

Treichl said the economies of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania or Hungary -- the core of Erste's CEE business -- haven't seen any significant changes resulting from the global credit crunch.

'In the upcoming years, all these countries will grow dramatically faster than the average of the EU. So we aren't affected by the subprime mortgage crisis,' Treichl said. [e-mail] [phone] jm1/sal COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News.