PRESS: Russia’s Sberbank sells Ukrainian branch for $130 mln

MOSCOW, Mar 29 (PRIME) -- Sberbank sold its Ukrainian unit for U.S. $130, slightly less than capital of the affiliate due to Kiev’s sanctions against Russian banks and blockade of their branches by nationalists, Kommersant business daily reported on Wednesday citing sources.

On Monday, Sberbank said it sold 100% in the Ukrainian affiliate to a consortium of Latvia’s Norvik Banka and a Belarusian private company, and expects the deal to be closed until the end of June. Later Norvik Banka said that the majority shareholder of the consortium is Said Gutseriyev, a son of tycoon Mikhail Gutseriyev.

“The sum of the deal is about $130 million. It is comparable to capital of Sberbank Ukraine, which amounted to $144 million according to the bank’s report for January–September 2016 calculated under International Financial Reporting Standards. All funds will be transferred to the buyer as soon as the sale agreement comes in force,” Kommersant reported citing sources.

Sources also told the business daily that Sberbank had been holding talks with these investors since the end of 2016. Initially, the sum of the deal was larger, but the sanctions introduced by Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko in March and the blockade forced Sberbank to cut the price in order to speed up the deal.

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