The State Agency for Deposit Insurance and Bank Resolution (DAB) said on Friday it had extended the deadline for submission of binding offers for the purchase of Croatia Bank until noon on October 30 on request by interested investors.

Four interested investors, which were involved in the due diligence process, expressed an interest in acquiring all shares in Croatia Bank. The deadline for submission of binding offers expired at noon today.

A sales agreement is expected to be finalised by November 20, and the transaction would be concluded in the months after that.

DAB said last month that the interest parties were from the banking and financial sector — two from Europe, one from the United States and one from Hong Kong.

Croatia Bank is fully owned by DAB. On July 6, DAB published a call for expression of interest in the purchase of all 4,746,000 Series A shares in the bank at a nominal price of HRK 100 per share.

Croatia Bank ended 2019 with a loss of HRK 25 million, while in the first half of this year it posted a gross profit of HRK 4.8 million.

According to data from the Croatian National Bank, Croatia Bank’s total assets amounted to HRK 1.97 billion at the end of last year and its share in the total assets of the banks in Croatia was 0.46%.