Last month, Deutsche Bank announced the acquisition, with Sal Oppenheim, of a 14% stake of China’s Huaxia Bank for €272m. A day later came the revelation that it was launching a retail banking operation in India, involving 400 staff in eight cities.
And now Deutsche is a front-runner in the bidding war for a 61.9% stake in Romania’s Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR), the ninth largest bank by Tier 1 capital in central and eastern Europe and, aside from Hungary’s OTP Bank, the only large bank in central Europe that is not already owned, at least partially, by a foreign bank. Investment bankers estimate that bids could reach €3.5bn, valuing BCR at €5.6bn.
