/ 3 April 2007

Standard Bank Argentina deal finalised

Standard Bank has finalised its acquisition of BankBoston Argentina, enabling the Standard Bank Group to further extend its footprint in the South American market. The newly merged bank opens for business under the Standard Bank brand on April 3.

Standard Bank Argentina’s existing corporate and investment banking operations will be integrated with those of BankBoston Argentina, giving Standard Bank Argentina a capital base of about $225-million.

Eduardo Spangenberg, previously the chief operating officer and chief risk officer of BankBoston Argentina, has been appointed chief executive officer of Standard Bank Argentina.

Standard Bank’s initial shareholding in the merged Standard Bank Argentina will be 76,7%. The balance of the shareholding will be held via a holding company by Standard Bank’s Argentine partners, the Werthein and Sielecki families, who hold options to acquire further shares to increase their shareholding over time to 30%.

BankBoston Argentina, with assets of about $2-billion, offers both personal and business banking and corporate and investment banking services and products in Buenos Aires province and a number of regional centres in Argentina, through a network of 87 branches. It has approximately 2 800 employees and a customer base of about 740 000 individual customers and 20 000 corporate, commercial and small business customers.

“The acquisition of BankBoston Argentina will not have a significant impact on the financial performance of Standard Bank in the short term,” the South African banking group said on Tuesday. ‒ I-Net Bridge