Santander favourite for Polish AIB

SPANISH banking giant Santander has emerged as the latest ‘favourite’ to land AIB’s 70% stake in Poland’s Bank Zachodni and could end up taking over most of the Irish banks’ international assets.

Santander winning the race for Zachodni — local media reports in Poland have put the Spaniards in the frame — could increase AIB’s chances of getting a better than average price for its controlling stake, something some commentators thought was lost amid growing talk of one of the other Polish-based banks buying the asset.

A price tag of around €2 billion had been loosely placed on AIB’s Polish operations by some market commentators and the sale of Zachodni is clearly viewed as being the key cog in the bank’s overall asset disposal strategy, which is aimed at raising the €7.4bn it needs to meet its end-of-year refunding targets, as set out by the Financial Regulator.