Hungary’s OTP Bank has won an auction by offering $358 million for DSK, Bulgaria’s second-largest bank, the government announced Tuesday.
The Hungarian bank bid 311 million euros for all of DSK, while the other bidder, Austria’s Erste Bank, bid 293 million euros ($337 million).
Initially, the government wanted to sell 80 percent of DSK, but raised the offer to 100 percent after talks with the bidders.
DSK is the country’s last state-owned bank to be sold. Completing bank privatization is among the government’s reform targets under an International Monetary Fund agreement.
The government had said earlier that the contract with the winner was to be signed in May with the aim of transferring ownership by August.