Erste Group Bank AG (Erste Group) is an Austrian financial service provider in Central and Eastern Europe serving 15.7 million clients in over 2,700 branches in seven countries. History Erste Group was founded in October 1819 as Erste österreichische Spar-Casse in Leopoldstadt, a suburb of Vienna. After the demise of communism, the company started a strong expansion into Central and Eastern Europe and by 2008 it had acquired 10 banks. In 1997, it went public and today the company is listed on the exchanges of Vienna, Prague and Bucharest and included in the indices CEETX, ATX and PX. On 9 August 2008 the former Erste Bank Oesterreich was split up into the newly founded holding company Erste Group Bank AG and the subsidiary Erste Bank der österreichischen Sparkassen AG; the foreign subsidiaries were taken over by the new holding company. Erste Group now includes all companies of the Group. The IPO in Vienna in 1997 was carried out by what was then the unitary Erste Bank (see link), which was also the institution which carried out further capital increases up until 2006, as well as a share split. Some of these transactions were the largest of their kind ever carried out in Vienna as a financial center. The capital generated by these transactions was used to finance acquisitions. On 18 July 2013 Erste Group successfully completed a capital increase in the amount of EUR 660.6 million. Erste Group shares are listed on the Vienna, Prague and Bucharest stock exchanges. Erste Group Bank AG is the most heavily weighted component of the "ATX" share index, which tracks the blue-chip shares traded on the Vienna Stock Exchange. (25 June 2018) In 2017, Erste Group received the "Best Bank in Central and Eastern Europe" award from Euromoney. That year, the publication also named Erste Group's subsidiary banks in Austria, the Czech Republic and Montenegro "Best Bank" in their respective markets, while it honored Group subsidiary Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR) in Romania as "Best Bank Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe". In a ranking by Forbes Magazine of the world's largest stock corporations in 2013, Erste Group Bank came in 672nd place and was third among Austrian companies. Expanding into Central and Eastern Europe since 1997 Erste Bank has been formed after the merger of GiroCredit Bank AG, Die Erste österreichische Spar-Casse AG (and some smaller institutions) in 1997. After restructuring and going public