VIENNA, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Erste Group Bank will not make any acquisitions in the near future other than a possible purchase of Croatia's Hrvatska Postanska Banka (HPB), its chief executive said.
"It's true that we show some interest in Postanska Banka," Andreas Treichl told analysts on a conference call monitored by Reuters via webcast. "Any other M&A activities, for the moment, I would exclude."
The Croatian government hopes to raise around 2 billion kuna ($361 million) from the sale of HPB and the country's biggest insurer.
Treichl said the potential acquisition would not require any capital measures and could be handled by Erste's local Croatian unit.
Erste wrote down 50 million euros ($69 million) of goodwill on its Croatian business in the second and third quarters as the Balkan country struggled to stimulate economic growth while reducing debt. ($1 = 5.5380 Croatian kunas) ($1 = 0.7262 euros) (Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; editing by Tom Pfeiffer)