In early 2009, shares in Austrian and Italian banks were pummelled by investors fearing that their exposure to central and eastern Europe would threaten balance sheets. Now they are fighting back, and staying safely in profit. Writer Philip Alexander
Austria’s Raiffeisen International (RZB) is in exclusive takeover talks with Ukraine’s second-largest commercial bank, Aval. “We are in talks that we have agreed will be mutual until May,” said the chief executive of Raiffeisen International, Herbert Stepic. “We want to take over the bank entirely.”