Report: Ukraine’s TAScombank may buy local unit of VTB Bank

MOSCOW, Dec 12 (PRIME) -- TAScombank, owned by Ukrainian politician and businessman Sergii Tigipko, is the only contender for a local unit of Russia’s second biggest lender VTB Bank, which was announced insolvent in November, Ukrainian business newswire Ekonomichna Pravda reported on Wednesday citing banking sources.

“Only TAScombank and Alfa-Bank bid at a competition of qualified investors. Alfa-Bank did not submit a guarantee payment, so Tigipko’s bank is the only remaining contender…About 600 properties remain on VTB Bank’s books, so it would be enough to cover the bulk of creditor claims,” the newswire read.

In 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 VEB.RF’s unit Prominvestbank, prohibiting all financial operations in favor of affiliated parties, including parent banks.

In September 2018, the Court of Appeal of Kiev arrested shares of local affiliates of VEB.RF, Sberbank and VTB Bank under several cases of companies owned by Igor Kolomoisky. The decision was made in the framework of fulfillment of an earlier ruling by the arbitration court in The Hague to order Russia to compensate for losses arising from separation of Crimea from Ukraine.

In November, VTB Bank CEO Andrei Kostin said that the Ukrainian unit was due to redeem about U.S. $100 million worth of deposits to clients, and it was ready to repay them until the end of 2019, but the country’s authorities did not allow that to happen.

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