Unfavorable market conditions have led to disappointing offers for Alior Bank Courtesy of Alior Bank

Alior Bank is no closer to finding a buyer, though bids were due on September 7, local media reported last week, and the lender is now considering listing on the stock exchange.

Business daily Parkiet reported that Alior’s owner, Italy’s Carlo Tassara Group, expects some zł.4 billion (about €1 billion) for the bank. However, none of the potential buyers, mostly private equity funds, were willing to offer that much, the newspaper said.

When WBJ contacted Alior to ask about the reports, the firm’s spokesperson, Dariusz Kozdra, said, “The bank is taking all possible development scenarios in the future into consideration, but no decisions have been made as of yet.”

Analysts said the offers for the bank are lower than Carlo Tassara expects because of unfavorable market conditions.

“Alior could be considering an IPO because they need capital to fund further growth and the main shareholders may want the IPO,” said Andrzej Powierża, an equity analyst at brokerage house Dom Maklerski Citi Handlowy.

Another factor that could potentially push the bank towards an IPO is the strong opposition of Poland’s financial market regulator, the Financial Supervision Auth-ority, to private equity funds becoming major stakeholders in banks.

“The problem with private equity funds is that they have a limited knowledge about the banking business so they don’t provide the know-how which is invaluable for strategy,” said Piotr Palenik, banking sector analyst at ING Securities.