GNB Sudameris Bank chairman of the board of directors Jaime Gilinski said the deal will assist the bank to expand significantly the group’s presence in South America, allowing it to boost its growth potential by offering services under a regional banking platform.
"We shall continue to serve each client in each of the four countries with the same level of quality, profitability and efficiency that has been our trademark in the Colombian market," Gilinski added.
The deal involves assets worth $4.4bn and acquisition of 62 offices that include 24 in Peru, 20 in Colombia, 11 in Uruguay and seven in Paraguay, said the bank.
The bank said that it is disposing its non-performing operation in smaller market to concentrate on emerging markets in Asia, although, its Latin American operations made an underlying pretax profit of $2.2bn last year up by 21% compared to 2010.
The group expects that the operations in Colombia and Peru will be closed in the last quarter of 2012 and in Uruguay and Paraguay in the first quarter of 2013.
Upon completion of the merger, which is subject to regulatory approval, the new banking entity will operate in four countries under the brand name of Banco GNB.
GNB Sudameris Bank offers personal, business and small and medium enterprise banking, as well as asset management and brokerage services to more than 280,000 individual clients and 7,700 business clients, owns assets of over $6bn and an estimated net worth of $500m.
