Banking sector consolidation continues in Georgia, where Bank of Georgia recently acquired its ninth-largest competitor, IntellectBank.
The purchase, which had a 3% market share of retail deposits, had been placed under administration by the Georgian national bank in the middle of February after being declared insolvent. “The National Bank of Georgia, which has been reviewing the operations of IntellectBank since last September, has been very open and forthcoming with the relevant information to us and other bidders,” says Lado Gurgenidze, chief executive of Bank of Georgia. “As a result, we are comfortable with the quality of due diligence we have been able to conduct despite the rapid pace at which this transaction proceeded.”
The acquisition is not Bank of Georgia’s first – it recently bought and integrated TUB, a similarly sized bank to IntellectBank, in just four months.