The Minister stressed he believes with this decision the country edged closer to regaining economic sovereignty, adding that following the signing of a pre-contract a final due-diligence report will be prepared to determine the final price.

The buyer is Corvinus Befektetési Zrt. and funding will be ensured by MFB (Hungarian Development Bank).

Although the Government will only later decide about the future of the bank, state ownership is not planned to be retained in the long term: Budapest Bank may be privately owned within the next one or two years, similarly to MKB, Mihály Varga pointed out.

He said the Hungarian banking system is thus nearing an optimal ratio of foreign and domestic ownership. In 2010, the Government aimed to have 50 percent of Hungarian ownership within the banking sector and through the purchasing of MKB and BB this objective has been achieved.

Through acquiring Budapest Bank the Minister is expecting competition to increase and quality to improve. However, he found it too early to say whether MKB and BB will be merged or not.

More details to follow.

Source: Ministry for National Economy