OTP Bank has made a non-biding bid for Tallinn-based Luminor Bank, financial website Portfolio reported on May 2, citing information from Bloomberg. 

The news comes less than a week after OTP chairman-CEO Sandor Csanyi told shareholders at the AGM that the lender made an indicative offer for a bank in an EU member state, in which it has no presence. The acquisition would be the largest in the bank’s history, he added.  

The acquisition of Nova KBM in 2023, with a book value of around €1bn was the largest deal in the bank’s history.

Luminor Bank is the third-largest bank in the Baltics, serving 900,000 clients with branches in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with a 15% market share in lending.

The lender competes with two Swedish banks, Swedbank and SEB, which operate throughout the region, as well as a smaller local bank, LHV Pank.

It is owned by private equity funds managed by Blackstone (80.05%) and DNB Bank (19.95%).

Luminor is reportedly up for sale at 1.2 times the book value, which would bring the price tag to over €2.1bn.

Neither Blackstone nor OTP commented on the report.

Besides Hungary, OTP operates in nine countries of the region, Albania Bulgari, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Moldova, Montenegro, Russia, and Ukraine. Hungary’s leading lender closed its first acquisition outside Europe last year, buying Uzbekistan’s fifth-largest bank, Ipoteka. OTP is the market leader in five countries and has a significant market share in several others.

Foreign units generated more than 60% of the net profit in 2023.

In related news, OTP’s share price rose 8.3% last month, making it the best-performing blue chip on the market with a turnover of HUF 137 billion, according to the monthly data from the Budapest Stock Exchange.