Among those private players, Unibank has attracted particular attention for its professionalism – so much so that Hungary’s OTP bought a minority stake in mid-2008. There were rumours that it was considering buying out the 15.15% stake owned by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the 8.33% owned by DEG, the overseas arm of German state development bank KfW.
“The bank continually demonstrates dynamic improvements, through expansion of infrastructure network, application of modern management and governance methods and facilitation of business processes. All these factors allow Unibank to keep its position among the top three banks that lead the national banking sector,” says chairman of the management board Faig Huseynov.
With assets growing by more than 175% in 2007, the bank responded with a 2.27x share capital increase, to AzM15m ($18.6m), to sustain the pace of growth while preserving the bank’s capital adequacy ratio. Shareholders are planning a further 15 million to 20 million capital increase in the near future, while the bank has agreed to retain all profits (up 40% at AzM3.8m in 2007) until 2010, to strengthen capitalisation still further. Finally, the management is considering an initial public offering of 25% to 30% of the bank’s shares.
A universal bank, Unibank has doubled its branches in 2008 to 22 nationwide. In addition, with technical help from the EBRD and DEG, the bank has strengthened internal training, IT and credit scoring systems, allowing it to become the first Azeri bank to win a Visa International e-commerce licence in February 2008.
