The regional award reflects not only the winning of country awards in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia and Serbia, but also significant growth in profits which are well shown in RI’s 93.3% rise in profits in last month’s record 2006 third quarter results.
Following Austria’s largest initial public offering (IPO) in April 2005, RI maintained its ground-breaking expansion with the acquisition of Ukraine’s Bank Aval in 2005 followed by the $550m purchase of Russia’s 43rd largest bank, Impexbank, earlier this year and that of the Czech Republic’s eBanka. These acquisitions and outstanding performances at home and in the Balkans, as well as elsewhere in the region, mark out Raiffeisen this year.
Chief executive Herbert Stepic notes: “Raiffeisen has been the pioneer in the rapidly growing banking markets of central and eastern Europe [CEE]. Today, with more than 2750 branches in 16 countries, Raiffeisen International, which bundles more than 100 RZB subsidiaries in CEE, offers the most comprehensive and widespread network of all international banks operating in the region. It has proven its pioneer role again in 2006, being the first international bank with a massive expansion in Russia through the acquisition of Impexbank. It did so the year before by acquiring Bank Aval in the Ukraine. Raiffeisen wins currently about 100,000 new retail customers per month and services more than 11.7 million clients throughout the CEE region.
“The strength is further underlined by the fact that Raiffeisen Zentralbank (RZB) is also the market leading provider of syndicated loans in CEE.”
