Shareholders of lender Erste Bank OK share capital increase by EUR 124.7m, buy-back own shares

Shareholders of Austrian lender Erste Bank (EBS) approved in today's meeting to hike the share capital by 124.7 million euros through convertible bonds, and to buy its own shares and participation rights, according to a release sent to the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE).

As many as 62.35 million shares will be issued to hike the share capital, to grant conversion or subscription rights to convertible bond owners.

The lender will buy its own shares from the capital market to trade them, but their total value per day will not exceed 5 percent of the share capital.

Erste Bank will pay a dividend of 0.65 euros for the 317 million shares without face value starting May 19. There will be distributed some 206.06 million euros.

Erste Group reported a net profit after minority interest of 859.6 million euros last year, down 27 percent on the previous one, as gains from selling insurance were directed towards the amortization of assets and of the subsidiaries' commercial fund.

Shares of Erste Group (EBS) are traded on the stock markets in Vienna, Prague and Bucharest. The lender has a capitalization of 27.7 billion lei established on May 11 on BSE, for a trading value of 87.40 lei.

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