PRESS: Khoroshkovsky still wants to buy Sberbank’s Ukrainian unit

MOSCOW, Jul 17 (PRIME) -- Ukrainian businessman Valery Khoroshkovsky does not give up attempts to acquire the local subsidiary of Russian national top lender Sberbank despite preparations of a deal to sell the bank to Belarus’ Paritetbank, Kommersant business daily reported Tuesday citing sources.

Khoroshkovsky expressed interest in buying Sberbank’s unit already in 2017, but dropped the idea in early 2018 due to sanctions risks. Sources said Khoroshkovsky’s participation in the deal could be nominal, and the purchase could be structured in quite a complicated way.

A spokesperson for the National Bank of Ukraine told the daily that the bid of Paritetbank was the only one.

Sberbank CEO German Gref said earlier in July he hoped for a positive decision of the National Bank of Ukraine on a purchase of Sberbank’s unit by Paritetbank.

Paritetbank sent a bid to acquire Sberbank’s local unit to the central bank of Ukraine in late June.

In May, Gref said that Sberbank planned a fourth attempt to sell the troubled unit.

In March 2017, Kiev introduced sanctions against all subsidiaries of Russian banks – Ukrainian units of Sberbank and VTB Bank, VS Bank of Sberbank, BM Bank of VTB, and Vnesheconombank’s unit Prominvestbank, prohibiting all financial operations in favor of affiliated parties, including parent banks.

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