UniCredit SpA is eyeing acquisition of Luminor Estonia Bank and is now vying with Hungary’s largest lender, OTP Bank Nyrt, to acquire the Baltic bank, Bloomberg reported.

Estonia-based Luminor, owned by Blackstone Inc., commenced the sale through a lender earlier this year. Blackstone has been seeking about 1.2 times book value in an exit, Bloomberg News has reported. Luminor had about €1.8bn ($1.9bn) of equity on its balance sheet at the end of December, according to filings.

The Hungarian bank OTP is also interested in buying Luminor. OTP neither confirmed nor denied that.

"As the OTP Group is very well capitalised and our liquidity position is also very good, we are currently looking for new acquisition opportunities," Bence Gaspar, communications manager at OTP Bank, said, ERR.ee, the website of Estonia’s national broadcaster ERR, reported.

Valeria Kiisk, a partner at Redgate Capital, told ERR.ee that if there are numerous red flags and a genuine fear of a shift towards the east, the central bank will not approve this transaction. "In fact, regardless of the buyer, this transaction would require central bank approval."

OTP said its current stake in Russia is very tiny at 0.14%.

"We are looking for potential buyers to sell our Russian units, but it is not easy because the sale requires the signature of the president… If we sell our bank, probably 35% of its value could be the final purchase price, which means 65% will go to the Russian economy," Gaspar said, ERR.ee reported.

As reported by bne IntelliNews, after the revelations of plans that Hungarian companies would like to acquire the Baltic bank Luminor and a controlling stake in the Lithuanian Achema Group, Lithuanian Parliament Speaker Viktorija Cmilyte-Nielsen says that “additional caution” is needed when it comes to investments by this country, LRT.lt, the website of Lithuania’s national broadcaster LRT reported.

OTP is the largest bank in Hungary and generated a €2.5bn profit in 2023.