Spanish bank BBVA said Tuesday it has agreed to acquire a 24.89 percent stake in Turkey's Garanti Bank for 4.2 billion euros ($5.84 billion) in cash and run it jointly with the Turkish bank's main shareholder.
BBVA, Spain's largest bank after Banco Santander, said it will buy the stake from the Turkish bank's two main shareholders, Dogus Holding and the General Electric Group.
BBVA announced the move in a filing with Spanish stock market regulators. It says the deal is subject to approval by Spanish, Turkish and European regulators.
It said Garanti Bank is Turkey's second-largest private bank in terms of assets, equivalent to 60 billion euros as of June 30, and has about 20,000 employees working in 837 branch offices.
If the deal goes through, BBVA will have exactly the same stake in Garanti Bank as Dogus Holding and they will run Garanti Bank together, BBVA said.
BBVA ha agreed to acquire from Dogus shares that amount to a 6.29 percent stake in Garanti Bank, and it wants to acquire the entire 18.6 percent stake GE now holds, the Spanish bank said.
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