MADRID/ISTANBUL, May 18 (Reuters) - Spain's BBVA
said on Wednesday it had paid 22.76 billion Turkish lira ($1.43
billion) to raise its stake in Garanti to 85.97%,
following its bid for the rest of the Turkish lender it did not
own.
Like bigger Spanish rival Santander, BBVA has been
expanding in emerging economies to boost income, though some
analysts point to risks from its exposure to the economic
uncertainty in Turkey, where inflation surged to a two-decade
high of close to 70% in April.
Surpassing the 50% threshold in Garanti, with its
acquisition of the further 36.12% stake, will allow BBVA to
allocate more capital to the Turkish lender without launching an
additional tender offer.
At the end of last month, BBVA had raised its bid for
Garanti to 15.00 Turkish lira ($0.9404) per share from 12.20
lira, or to 1.985 billion euros for the 50.15% stake of Garanti
it did not already hold.
Despite increasing the offer by 23% to up to 31.595 billion
lira in case of full acceptance, when valued in euros, BBVA's
bid was worth less than the 2.25 billion euros when it was
initially announced on Nov. 15 because the Turkish currency has
since depreciated by more than 28%.
BBVA Chief Executive Onur Genc said last month that the bank
could start applying "hyperinflation accounting as early as in
the second quarter" in Turkey. Although Genc said the change
could be positive for capital, he acknowledged it would result
in a hit to earnings.
On Wednesday, BBVA said in a filing to the Spanish stock
market supervisor that the acquisition of the 36.12% stake in
Garanti had a negative impact of 23 basis points on its core
tier-1 fully loaded capital ratio, the strictest measure of
solvency.
(Reporting by Berna Suleymanoglu and Jesús Aguado in Madrid
Editing by Andrei Khalip, Matthew Lewis and Leslie Adler)