OREANDA-NEWS. November 22, 2007. Capital Group has agreed to sell a 95% equity stake in AvtoZAZBank to the Bank of Cyprus. The agreement will take effect after receiving respective approvals from the Ukrainian and Cypriote antimonopoly committees, the Concorde Capital press service reports. Capital Group shareholders plan to use the proceeds from the sale to develop their property investments in Ukraine.

Concorde Capital acted as Capital Group's sole financial advisor, and KM Partners acted as legal advisor.

Vitaliy Strukov, Concorde Capital's Managing Director of Investment Banking, had this to say about the deal:  "AvtoZAZBank is a dynamic Ukrainian bank with a fast growing retail segment and professional management team making it an attractive target for strategic investors. For Concorde Capital, this is the third sale of a Ukrainian mid-sized bank this year. Similar to previous cases, the selected strategic investor was optimal for the sellers. The demand of strategic investors for Ukrainian mid-sized banks is still high, and it is estimated that M&A deals will continue to happen at a similar pace over the next 6-12 months."

AvtoZAZBank was founded in 1991. The bank's head office is located in Kyiv and it has a network consisting of 26 outlets and 18 seasonal points of sale located in Ukraine's four key regions. The bank employs 365 people. According to the bank's financials as of October 31, 2007, its equity totaled EUR 15 mln, its loan portfolio - EUR 85 mln, and deposits stood at EUR 82 mln.

Concorde Capital is a full service investment bank operating in the Ukrainian, Russian and CIS financial markets. In 2007, Thomson Extel's Pan European Survey named Concorde Capital's analytical team the Top Analytical Team covering Ukraine. Concorde Capital is a leader in private placements and M&A deals. Concorde's role in the sale of Elektron Bank to Austria's Volksbank International earned the company the Adam Smith Institute's "Best Ukrainian M&A deal of 2007" award. Concorde Capital has attracted over USD 1 bln for leading Ukrainian companies and banks over the last two years.