Banco de Crédito e Inversiones or BCI would be seeking shareholder approval for a capital increase. Chilean regulators said Chile's third largest private bank needed investors to approve a capital hike of USD 400 million. The money would be used to partly finance its acquisition of the City National Bank of Florida. In May 2013, BCI reached a definitive agreement to purchase the Florida bank from Bankia, a Spanish nationalized lender. Bankia had to sell City National Bank after European governments bailed it out from its losses in Spain. The price tag for that transaction was USD 883 million. Regulators in Chile and the US still have to approve the deal.
City National Bank posted a net income of USD 190.2 million in 2012. It also actively grew its loan portfolio to USD 50 million in the first quarter of this year. When the definitive agreement was reached in May, City National Bank President and CEO Jorge Gonzalez had said they looked forward to becoming part of the BCI family. BCI has an international branch in Miami, Florida, holding assets estimated at USD 3 billion. BCI's total assets is pegged at more than USD 38 billion.
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