(Reuters) – UniCredit said on Monday it would sell its remaining 20% stake in Yapi Kredi Bank by March 2022, as the Italian bank reduces its exposure in Turkey’s third biggest lender in a strategic move to optimise its asset allocations.
Under the deal, Turkey’s Koc Holding will buy 18% of Yapi Kredi’s shares for 0.3 billion euros ($346.62 million), Italian lender said in a statement.
The share sale, expected to occur in the first quarter of 2022, comes after Koc Holding and UniCredit signed an agreement in 2019. The companies had struck a deal to change the ownership structure of Yapi Kredi, which both companies had controlled via a joint venture.
The rest 2% of shares are expected to be sold in the market, Unicredit said.
Through the joint venture, UniCredit had indirectly held 40% of Yapi. However, unwinding of the JV handed UniCredit a direct 31.9% stake, of which 12% was sold in February 2020.
UniCredit added that the deal will have an overall low-mid single digit positive impact on the lender’s consolidated CET1 ratio – a measure to gauge a bank’s ability to withstand financial distress by comparing its capital against its risk-weighted assets.
(Reporting by Jahnavi Nidumolu and Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
