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Evo Banco Grows Thanks to the Acquisition of Finanmadrid

05/08/2014 – Expansión

Apollo yesterday completed the merger of two of its four banking businesses in Spain. EvoBanco, the bank which bought NCG Bank almost one year ago, has acquired Fracciona, the old Finanmadrid which Apollo acquired from Bankia in March 2013.

With this transaction, Apollo unites its retail banking and consumer creditsubsidiaries (Evo and Fracciona, respectively). As a result, EvoBanco increases its activity in Spain by 132,000 new customers, a total of 335 million euros of loans and 67 new employees.

In total, this bank now has a total of 357,000 customers, 602 employees and assets valued at 2,350 million euros.

Apollo purchased EvoBanco for 60 million euros. The North American investment fund had to accept stricter conditions from the Bank of Spain, such as injecting a greater amount of capital as a buffer and committing to not sell in the short term.

The fund also has a further two businesses in Spain: AvantCard, Bank of America’s old credit card business; and Altamira, Santander’s real estate management business, of which the fund has an 85% share and the bank a 15% share.

To complete the AvantCard business, Apollo is looking into the possibility of investing in the credit card and consumer credit businesses of BancoPopular and Citibank.

In total, the fund has now invested close to 1,500 million in Spanish banking businesses during the financial crisis.

Original article: Expansión (by J.Z. Madrid)
Translation: Aura REE