Intesa Sanpaolo wants to fully take over ALEXBANK in Egypt

Italian banking group Intesa Sanpaolo SpA is seeking to take the 20% stake it does not hold in Egypt's ALEXBANK as part of its plan to increase its investment in Egypt and expand into the small and medium-sized project financing segment, reports egypttoday.com.

Negotiations with the Egyptian government are in the initial phase, according to local media, which quotes the head of ALEXBANK's international subsidiaries division, Marco Rottigni.

The announcement comes as Egypt has an initial public offering (IPO) program to make stakes in 35 state-owned companies available to strategic investors by 2024. The program aims to raise $5 billion by June 2024.

In early 2006, Egypt sold 80% of ALEXBANK for $1.6 billion to Sanpaolo IMI. The following year, Sanpaolo IMI merged with Banca Intesa, giving rise to the current largest banking group in Italy, Intesa Sanpaolo.

Intesa Sanpaolo owns 80% of ALEXBANK after in 2020 it bought back a 9.75% stake it had sold to International Finance Corporation in a deal valued at $161.8 million.

• Intesa Sanpaolo has permission to sell its assets in Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed, at the end of last week, a decree by which Intesa Sanpaolo can sell its assets in Russia, according to Reuters.

According to the decree dated September 28 and published on Friday on the Moscow Government website, Russia allows the Intesa bank to sell, directly or indirectly, 100% of the shares of the local business.

Intesa representatives could not be contacted immediately for comments on the information.

Intesa Sanpaolo halved its gross exposure to Russia in 2022 to 2.5 billion euros ($2.8 million), of which 1.6 billion euros were loans granted to Russian clients. The bank had approximately 980 employees in Russia, in 28 branches, at the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine (February 2022), and subsequently stopped financing to Russian customers and made no further investments in Russian assets.

From 2022, Intesa tried to reduce its ties with Russia, a country in which it financed major investment projects.