Canadian finance and supply chain company MFC Industrial has acquired Bawag Malta Bank from Bawag PSK of Austria for €90.8mn.

The bank will retain a focus on specialty banking services, such as structured and trade finance, factoring, forfaiting, inventory finance, and bank guarantees to MFC’s international finance and supply chain customers and suppliers.

According to an MFC statement, customer deposits will mainly be comprised of small and medium-sized corporate clients, who may also be trade and structured finance customers, as well as MFC group companies and other related entities.

The acquisition involves a name change for Bawag Malta, renamed as MFC Merchant Bank, and for MFC Industrial, too. From February 16 it will be known as MFC Bancorp, the name the company held from 1996 until 2005.

At the time, MFC was providing merchant banking services and finance solutions, including trade finance products, and also engaged in proprietary investing for its own account. With the 2004 acquisition of KHD Humboldt Wedag (KHD), the company decided to focus on the KHD business of design, engineering and global construction of industrial plants and relinquished its banking licence.

Within the following 10 years, the company evolved into a supply chain management company, with interests in metals refining in Europe, and global energy operations in oil and gas-related businesses. The MFC group is currently active in a wide range of industrial products such as metals, minerals, electricity/power, steel products, ferroalloys, chemicals and wood products.

The group has come to see the benefits in having a bank to supplement its supply chain operations: “This acquisition is an important step towards executing our long-term strategy to leverage our trade finance and supply chain platform by offering additional complementary trade and structured finance products,” explains Gerardo Cortina, MFC president and CEO. “The addition of an ‘in-house’ bank to our group enables us to provide our business partners regulated services and solutions which we believe will enhance our margin and revenue profile.”