Spain's Santander Submits Bid For Poland's BZ WBK - Report

19th Jul 2010 06:39

WARSAW (Dow Jones)--Banco Santander SA (SAN.MC), Spain's largest bank by assets, has also submitted a bid for Poland's Bank Zachodni WBK SA (BZW.WA), a unit of Allied Irish Banks PLC (AIB), the daily Puls Biznesu reported Monday. Originally, Poland's two largest lenders--state-controlled PKO Bank Polski (PKO.WA) and Bank Pekao SA (PEO.WA), a unit of Unicredit SpA (UCG.MI)--were reported to have bid for BZ WBK. The list also included Russia's Sberbank (SBRBF), HSBC PLC (HBC), Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (ISP.MI), France's BNP Paribas SA (BNP.FR) and U.K.-based private equity company Apax Partners. Later, Sberbank, HSBC and Pekao were reported to have withdrawn their bids. Other media reports said listed PKO BP and BNP Paribas had been shortlisted for the BZ WBK bid. AIB has to sell its 70.5% stake in the Polish lender to meet capital targets after the Irish bank received EUR3.5 billion in government aid to help offset its bad debts. Newspaper website: www.pb.pl -Warsaw Bureau, Dow Jones Newswires; +48 22 447 2430; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires July 19, 2010 01:39 ET (05:39 GMT)