The international law firm CMS advised the Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF) on securing regulatory approval for the fund's €4.5 million investment in Bank Lviv, CMS said.
The firm advised DGGF on securing regulatory approvals from the National Bank of Ukraine and the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine for the acquisition of a "significant shareholding" in Bank Lviv, according to a press release.
It also advised the fund, run by Triple Jump and PwC for the government of the Netherlands, on other transactional documents related to its investment, which marked the first foreign investment in a Ukrainian bank since the full-scale Russian invasion of 2022.
"The CMS team provided comprehensive regulatory advice to DGGF throughout the transaction, as well as advice to Bank Lviv on investment agreements," CMS said.
Bank Lviv, which operates in western Ukraine, didn't disclose the size of the stake the fund will take. In January of 2022, a month before the Russian invasion, the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (Nefco) took a 13.94% stake in Bank Lviv as part of a €8.4 million share capital increase.
After that transaction, Bank Lviv was 48.56% owned by responsAbility and 37.47% by Icelandic banker Margeir Petursson.
Bank Lviv, which focuses on lending to small and medium-sized enterprises in western Ukraine, ranked 30th out of Ukraine's 64 banks by assets last year, with assets of €252 million and a €170 million loan portfolio.
