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Friday, June 20, 2014

Scotiabank to acquire Chile Cencosud's retail credit card business, (NYSE: BNS)

Bank of Nova Scotia said on Friday it has agreed to purchase a 51 percent majority stake in Latin American retailer Cencosud's retail credit card business in Chile for $280 million.The Canadian bank and its local unit, Scotiabank Chile , will also finance all of the retailer's credit card portfolio in Chile for around $1 billion, according to the terms of the agreement, which also call for the establishment arrangement between the retailer and bank to last 15 years.The acquisition "will strengthen our credit card offerings for our customers and attract new customers to the bank," Wendy Hannam, Scotiabank's executive vice president for Latin America, said in a statement.Scotiabank, Canada's third-largest bank, is active in more than 55 countries and has said Chile is one of four Latin American countries it is focusing on for growth. The others are Mexico, Colombia and Peru.

The Bank of Nova Scotia (the Bank) is a diversified financial institution. Shares of BNS traded higher by 1.03% or $0.67/share to $66.00. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $52.05 and as high as $65.84. On average, 271253 shares of BNS exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 322768.



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