Czech Banka Creditas has made a binding takeover bid for the Maltese group over online bank MeDirect. Behind Banka Creditas is relatively unknown billionaire Pavel Hubáček.
MeDirect is an online bank offering savings and investment products in Malta, Belgium and, recently, the Netherlands. Its legal and technology headquarters is in Malta and its owner is British investment fund AnaCap Financial Partners.
The Belgian branch, MeDirect’s main business, has its own banking licence. It has over 100,000 customers and targets assets between €30,000 and €300,000. Alain Moreau (ex-Deutsche Bank) is the ceo, Marcia De Wachter (ex-Nationale Bank) the chairman.
Dutch investment products, on the other hand, are distributed directly through MeDirect Bank plc in Malta. That Maltese bank announced on Tuesday evening that Czech Banka Creditas is making a binding takeover bid for MDB Group, MeDirect’s parent company. If that bid succeeds, AnaCap will sell the entire company to Banka Creditas.
‘The offer is subject to various conditions,’ MeDirect maintains a disclaimer. Regulators are also yet to give their blessing. Banka Creditas would already commit to invest additional capital in MDB Group or its subsidiaries.
Discreet billionaire
Banka Creditas is a Czech financial institution that is part of the investment group Creditas Group. It was founded by Pavel Hubáček, a 55-year-old entrepreneur who, according to business magazine Forbes, can call himself a dollar billionaire and owns, in addition to several energy companies and a hotel, a private jet, a vineyard in Bordeaux and even a painting by Mondrian.
He began his career buying up goods in the West to sell more expensively in then-communist Czechoslovakia and then became rich thanks to his companies that extended credit to families.
His hunger has not yet been satisfied after more than 30 years of building a business empire. Hubáček hopes to double the value of Creditas Group in the coming years. Further growth of financial arm Banka Creditas fits into that picture. Banka Creditas recently merged with Max Banka and now has 260,000 customers, which remains relatively small from a European perspective. With MeDirect added, the bank would regain some body and, most importantly, operate outside the Czech Republic for the first time.