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Gorenjska Banka

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Gorenjska Banka is a bank in Slovenia, headquartered in Kranj and established in 1996 as a self-standing credit institution.

Overview

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Following a few years during which the National Bank of Yugoslavia was the only financial institution in the country, banks were established at the local level in 1955.[1]: 3  A first municipal bank in Upper Carniola (Slovene: Gorenjska) was founded in Kranj on 25 May 1955. It was soon followed by other banks in Škofja Loka, Radovljica, Tržič and Bled. These were then reorganized into a joint bank which in 1972 became part of the Ljubljana Bank system. On 27 December 1989, it was transformed into a limited company in the system of the sister banks of Ljubljana Bank. A process of separation from the Ljubljana Bank group started in 1994 and led to Gorenjska Banka becoming an independent institution in 1996.[2]: 18  By 2011 the Sava Group, a Slovenian conglomerate, held a controlling stake of 46 percent in Gorenjska Banka.[3]

In 2015, the Bank of Slovenia determined that the Sava Group was too financially vulnerable to be an appropriate owner of the bank.[4][5] In 2016, Serbian bank AIK Banka acquired a 21 percent stake in Gorenjska Banka, and raised it to 76 percent in 2018 by buying out Sava's stake and other shareholders.[6]

Gorenjska Banka subsequently became a full subsidiary of Agri Europe Cyprus Limited (est.2011),[7] the holding entity of a privately owned conglomerate led by Serbian businessman Miodrag Kostić with activities in south-eastern Europe and Ukraine.[8] As a consequence, Gorenjska Banka became a sister company to AIK Banka, which is also controlled by Agri Europe.[9] In 2020, Agri Europe Cyprus Limited has been designated as a Significant Institution under European Banking Supervision, and therefore Gorenjska Banka has been directly supervised by the European Central Bank since 1 January 2021.[10]: 101 

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Predrag Četković (September 2015), The Role of Banks in Economic Development in the Former SFR Yugoslavia, Vienna: Wiener Institut für Internationale Wirtschaftsvergleiche
  2. ^ Gorenjska Banka - Annual Report 2022 (PDF)
  3. ^ Business operations of the Sava Group and Sava d.d. in the period January-June 2011
  4. ^ Beata Fojcik (20 October 2017). "Report: Gorenjska Banka's shareholder fined for failing to sell its stake". S&P Global Market Intelligence.
  5. ^ "Sava to sell its stake in Gorenjska Banka to Serbia's AIK". Reuters. 13 December 2017.
  6. ^ Maja Garaca (30 January 2018). "Slovenia's Sava shareholders approve sale of Gorenjska banka to Serbia's AIK". SeeNews.
  7. ^ Agri Europe Cyprus Limited, Cyprus: Consolidated Financial Statements For the Year Ended December 31, 2019 (PDF), p. 3
  8. ^ Svitlana Pyrkalo (7 February 2017). "EBRD exits investment in Agri Europe". European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
  9. ^ "Fitch Affirms Gorenjska Banka at 'BB-'; Outlook Stable". Fitch Ratings. 17 March 2023.
  10. ^ "List of supervised entities" (PDF). European Central Bank. 28 December 2020.