Bawag had already been widely tipped as a bidder but the confirmation follows an Austrian media report in Die Presse newspaper that it is preparing a \u20ac1.6bn, or \u20ac2.94 per share, offer for the Irish bank. <\/p>\n
An offer of \u20ac2.94, if that is what materialises \u201cwould represent an extremely disappointing outcome\u201d for shareholders, which includes the Irish Government, analysts at Goodbody Stockbrokers, noted.<\/p>\n
At \u20ac2.94 a share, it is below where PTSB stock has traded for most of the period since a potential sale was announced and lower than where the shares closed on Monday. <\/p>\n
On Wednesday, PTSB shares were trading at \u20ac3.13.<\/p>\n
PTSB said it notes the (latest) recent media speculation and “confirms that Bawag is one of a number of parties participating in the formal sale process which was announced on 30 October, 2025\u201d.<\/p>\n
“The formal sale process remains ongoing, and PTSB continues to engage with all parties participating in the formal sale process.\u201d<\/p>\n
PTSB had up to now offered little or no guidance on its sale process since it was launched last October, but it is understood first round bids have been reviewed from a number of potential buyers and a second round to identify a buyer is now underway.<\/p>\n
The sale process is being managed by Goldman Sachs. Private equity firms Centrebridge and Lonestar have also been named in reports as a potential buyer. <\/p>\n
Bawag had all but said it was interested when it announced its annual results in February. The head of the Austrian lender outlined the bank\u2019s interest in acquisitions, the Irish market and deals in the \u20ac1bn-to-\u20ac2bn range. However, the bank held back from commenting directly on a possible bid for PTSB.<\/p>\n
At the time, the Vienna-based bank said it is growing into a pan-European and US banking group as it integrates acquisitions, including a credit card business in Germany bought last year from Ireland-headquartered Barclays Europe.<\/p>\n
Further acquisitions are on the table, the bank\u2019s CEO Anas Abuzaakouk said on a call with investors following the results, though he did not comment directly on possible Irish takeover deals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are positioning ourselves for future growth, both organic and inorganic,\u201d he told analysts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have the bandwidth to take on larger acquisitions.\u201d<\/p>\n
In relation to Ireland, he said Bawag had entered the mortgage market here through MoCo two years ago, but had been following developments in the market for some time previous to that and identified Ireland as one of seven core markets of interest to the bank.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think Ireland has one of the most robust banking markets across the European Union,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Speaking in general terms, he suggested a deal in the \u20ac1bn-to-\u20ac2bn range would be within the bank\u2019s appetite for acquisitions. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at our history of 14 acquisition deals done in the past decade, they have ranged from half a billion euro to almost \u20ac20bn,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For the bank, a small deal takes as long as a large deal, he pointed out. The more important question is whether they actually create value, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bawag had already been widely tipped as a bidder but the confirmation follows an Austrian media report in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,14486,61,60],"class_list":["post-353053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-donal-odonovan","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}