ING revises projections downwards for shares of banks in CEE, including Erste and BRD

Dutch financial group ING yesterday revised its trading recommendations downward and cut its target price for shares of many listed banks in Central and Eastern Europe, including BRD, Erste, Raiffeisen and OTP, Reuters reports. For BRD, the second-largest Romanian bank in terms of assets, held by French group Société Générale and listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, ING set a 6 RON/share target price, compared with the previous 23 RON and kept the "buy" recommendation. As for Erste, the majority shareholder of BCR listed on both Vienna and Bucharest Stock Exchanges, ING revised the target price from 44 euros to 9.4 euros, and changed its recommendation from "buy" to "hold". ING also modified the target price for Raiffeisen shares on the Vienna Stock Exchange, from 50 euros per share, down to 15.8 euros per share, and changed the recommendation from "buy" to "hold". For Hungarian bank OTP, which also has operations in Romania, the Dutch group cut the target price from 4,950 to 3,260 forints per share, but kept the "buy" recommendation. Fears of investors and analysts on the developed markets regarding the economic situation and the problems of financial systems in Eastern Europe have constantly intensified over the last few weeks, prompting financial rating agencies to bring into discussion the rating outlooks of the large banks in Western Europe which are exposed to emerging markets, including Erste, Société Générale and Raiffeisen.