HungaryTrends – The previous week in business and finance

See below main business and financial news from the previous week:

OPEL LAUNCHES PRODUCTION OF NEW ENGINE AT HUNGARY BASE

French-owned car maker Opel launched production of a three-cylinder turbo petrol engine at its plant in Szentgotthárd, western Hungary, following a 38 million euro investment.

The engines will be built into Opel, Peugeot and Citroen models.

The Szentgotthárd plant has capacity to turn out 350,000 engines a year.

OTP TO BOOST MARKET SHARE IN SLOVENIA, PULL OUT OF SLOVAKIA

OTP Bank aims to raise its market share in Slovenia to 25-30 percent in the long term, chairman-CEO Sándor Csányi said, weeks after the lender entered the market with the acquisition of SKB Banka, which has a market share of close to 10 percent. He said OTP wants to achieve that goal through organic growth and acquisitions. Meanwhile, the Slovakian press reported that

OTP would sell its unit there.

OTP Banka Slovensko, which has market share of about 3 percent, confirmed talks on its sale are underway.

PRIVATE EQUITY FIRM MCI GROUP SELLS NETRISK STAKE FOR EUR 55M

MCI.EuroVentures, a fund of Warsaw-based private equity firm MCI Group, sold a stake in Hungarian insurance broker Netrisk to peer TA Associates for 55 million euros. MCI Group will retain a 23.7 percent stake in Netrisk “to actively help build value for the insurtech leader on a larger, regional scale”, the firm said.