A special meeting of shareholders at Košice's Priemyselna Banka, a bank under a caretaker administration imposed by the National Bank of Slovakia, agreed on December 3 to sell the bank to the state-owned Slovenská Sporiteľňa (SLSP). The shareholders approved the draft contract on the bank sale with the consent of the central bank and the caretaker administrator.
The SLSP should not pay more than one crown for the purchase. The only condition of the sale is that Priemyselná Banka creates provisions as recommended by an independent auditor.
NBS spokesman Ján Onda confirmed that both institutions had signed an agreement on launching the process for the takeover of Priemyselná Banka by SLSP. The reasons for the move included insufficient liquidity to ensure the bank would meet its obligations, repeated postponement of payments to large clients, repeated failure to meet the minimum reserves requirement, and the fact the bank had not summoned a special meeting of shareholders to deal with these problems. Additionally, some indications showed that the bank's management may have been acting against the bank's interests.
The caretaker administration was preceded by private entities gaining a controlling interest in the bank.
