SP acquires majority IRB stake

The National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) said on June 10 that the biggest Slovak insurer, Slovenská Poisťovňa (SP) had acquired a 66.7% stake in the troubled IRB bank by subscribing the entire two billion Sk ($57.6 million) share issue. The IRB, whose basic capital is now three billion Sk, was put under caretaker administration by the NBS last December due to liquidity problems. In 1996, the bank posted a loss of about 1.2 billion Sk after heavy loan provisioning, following after-tax profits of 167.5 million Sk in 1995. Its capital adequacy ratio fell to 2.93% at the end of 1996 from 7.25% at the end of 1995.