PRESS: Russia’s Rosneft unit bids for Globexbank, Sviaz-Bank

MOSCOW, Jan 25 (PRIME) -- A unit of Russian oil major Rosneft has filed a bid to acquire Vnesheconombank’s (VEB) subsidiary banks Globexbank and Sviaz-Bank and is among three final candidates for the purchase, Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday citing sources close to VEB and Rosneft.

VEB’s management will choose one of the candidates by mid-February and will discuss details of the deal with it, one of the sources said.

The two other candidates are companies of banker Artyom Avetisyan and Russian Railways’ private pension fund Blagosostoyanie.

VEB said it will not comment on the deal until a decision is made.

VEB had to bail out Sviaz-Bank and Globexbank during the 2008 crisis and received over 200 billion rubles from the central bank at that time. In early 2015, the government said the assets were non-core for VEB, and VEB initially planned to sell the banks to the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA), but later dropped the plan.

Now VEB aims to sell the banks in the first half of 2017.

(59.2168 rubles – U.S. $1)

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