Spanish lender Santander has sold around 3.5% stake in its Polish subsidiary Santander Bank Polska via an accelerated bookbuilding process.

This transaction is valued at up to $473m, according to a Reuters report.

It follows an agreement in May this year to sell a 49% stake in Santander Bank Polska to Erste Group Bank for up to €6.8bn ($7.90bn).

This stake sale to Erste left Santander with around 13% ownership in Santander Bank Polska.

The Spanish lender completed the placement of 3.58 million ordinary shares of its Polish unit. This represented around 3.5% of Santander Bank Polska’s share capital. The shares were priced at 482 zlotys ($132.33) per share.

Following the placement and the divestment of around 49% stake in Santander Bank Polska to Erste Group, the group now holds around 9.7% in the Polish unit.

In May, besides the stake sale, Santander and Erste also announced a strategic cooperation to leverage each other’s strengths and experience in corporate and investment banking.

As part of this partnership, Erste gained access to Santander’s global payments platforms.

In June this year, Santander Bank signed an agreement to divest seven branches in Pennsylvania, the US, to Community Financial System’s subsidiary Community Bank.

The sale of its branches was driven by its transformation into a digital-first bank.

In October, Santander announced the merger of its Santander Consumer Finance (SCF) with Openbank to create a single legal entity, operating under the Openbank brand.

Openbank and SCF are part of Santander’s Digital Consumer Bank (DCB) global business, and the move aims to streamline the company’s consumer finance operations in Europe.