Xinjiang Hualing in move to establish Georgia's No 3 bank

Xinjiang Hualing Trade and Industry (Group) Co Ltd said on Wednesday that it had entered into a preliminary agreement with Societe Generale Group and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to buy Societe Generale's majority stake in Bank Republic, its Georgian subsidiary.

The transaction will help Hualing, a large private conglomerate based in China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and one of the major foreign investors in Georgia, to strengthen its banking arm in Georgia.

According to the transaction terms, Hualing will merge Bank Republic with its banking entity BasisBank to create a universal bank that will become the No 3 player in the Georgian market with total assets reaching about 2.5 billion Georgian lari ($1.07 billion). The new bank will have 250,000 clients, 61 branches and some 1,300 staff.