Ljubljana - The Hungarian OTP Bank has received the green light from the European Central Bank (ECB) to take over NKBM, the Slovenian bank in majority ownership of US fund Apollo, shows a posting on the website of the Slovenian central bank.

For the takeover to be fully cleared, OTP now only needs approval from the Slovenian market regulator - the Agency for Competition Protection.

Unofficial information shows its clearance could come in the coming days, whereupon OTP will only have to transfer the purchase consideration to the existing owners to complete the takeover.

Although it is not officially known how much the Hungarian bank will pay for NKBM, the deal is unofficially worth EUR 1 billion.

Eighty percent of NKBM is now in the hands of Apollo with the rest being held by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

OTP Bank signed a contract to purchase the outright stake in NKBM in May last year, and the deal was expected to be completed by June this year.

Due to the delays in obtaining regulator approval, the new deadline is the end of the third quarter.

Apollo and EBRD bought NKBM in mid-2016 for EUR 250 million after Slovenia supplied the country's banks with billions of euros amid the finacial crisis in 2013-2014 in what amounted to nationalisation. In exchange to the state aid it provided to its banks, the country had to commit to privatise them later on.

NKBM bought another Slovenian bank, Abanka, in mid-2019 for EUR 444 million, with OPT Bank also interested in the purchase at the time.