Groupama Selling 3% OTP Bank Stake Via Private Placement

(Bloomberg) -- Groupama SA, the third-largest shareholder in Hungary’s OTP Bank Nyrt., is looking to sell more than a third of its holdings as part of plans to diversify its assets.

The French insurer will sell 8.26 million OTP shares via an institutional private placement in an accelerated bookbuilding, starting immediately, according to terms obtained by Bloomberg News. The seller will enter a lock-up agreement to retain the remaining 5 percent stake for at least 180 days.

Groupama acquired the OTP stake in 2008 as part of a deal to buy the lender’s insurance business. The Hungarian government also sold a 5-percent stake in OTP in October 2015. Citigroup and HSBC are acting as joint bookrunners for Groupama’s offer, with a price guidance setting a discount of as much as 5.6 percent for the sale.

OTP Bank declined to comment on the Groupama sale. The company’s shares closed 1.1 percent lower at 8,210 forint on Wednesday, valuing the stake on offer at 67.8 billion forint ($237 million).

To contact the reporters on this story: Marton Eder in Budapest at meder4@bloomberg.net, Tiago Ramos Alfaro in London at talfaro1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ven Ram at vram1@bloomberg.net, Andras Gergely, Balazs Penz