UPDATE: Sberbank CEO says government should sell shares, not raise taxes

(Adds comments in paragraph 5)

MOSCOW/ST. PETERSBURG, Jun 8 (PRIME) -- The government should rather sell some of the central bank’s 52.32% common shares in Russia’s top bank Sberbank and spend the money on reforms rather than raise taxes, Sberbank CEO German Gref said in a news conference on Friday.

“I think they should not hold it, I see no reason to hold it,” he said, adding that the government could sell the stake instead of raising taxes.

But Sergei Ignatyev, chairman of Sberbank’s supervisory board, said that the central bank should not cut the stake.

Gref also said that Sberbank had not discussed interim dividends with the regulator.

But Central Bank First Deputy Chairman Sergei Shvetsov told reporters that the regulator is not discussing sale of any shares in Sberbank as the law directly prohibits it.

Central bank’s stake in Sberbank’s shareholder equity amounts to 50% plus one share, while foreign companies own 45.6%, Russian companies 1.5%, and private investors 2.9%.

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