Sberbank selling its Ukrainian subsidiary

Russia’s biggest lender, the state-controlled Sberbank (SBER LI), announced on March 27 it signed a legally binding agreement to sell its Ukrainian subsidiary to a consortium of investors. Sberbank expects the deal will be concluded in 1H17 after the parties get the necessary permits from Ukrainian and Latvian state regulators.

The consortium consists of Said Gutseriev, who has a 55% stake, and Latvian Norvik Banka, which has a 45% stake, according to the kommersant.ru news site. The controlling shareholder of Norvik Banka, Latvia’s seventh biggest bank by assets, is Grigory Guselnikov, a U.K. citizen of Russian origin.

Gutseriev, described by Norvik Banka as a U.K. citizen who used to work for Glencore, is identified by the Interfax news agency as a son of Mikhail Gutseriev, the owner of 60% of Russia’s sixth biggest oil company Russneft (RNFT RX), in which Glencore holds a 25% stake. Glencore is also a co-investor in a 19.5% stake in Russia’s state-controlled oil giant Rosneft (ROSN LI).

Ukrainian Sberbank, as well as four other Ukrainian subsidiaries of Russian state banks, fell under local sanctions imposed on March 16, which banned any money transfers to their related companies abroad. With its total assets of USD 1.78 bln, Sberbank was ranked sixth-biggest in Ukraine as of end-2016. The parent company contributed about USD 170 mln into Ukrainian Sberbank’s equity last year. The book value of its equity was just USD 137 mln as of end-2016.

Alexander Paraschiy: Regardless of the Russian origins of the new investors in Ukrainian Sberbank, we believe Ukraine’s central bank (the NBU) will be glad to approve the deal, as the presence of banks with Russian state capital creates political and reputational risks for the regulator. On the one hand, the NBU was widely criticized for closing its eyes to the presence in Ukraine of banks owned by an aggressor-state. On the other hand, the recently approved sanctions against the Ukrainian subsidiaries of Russian state-owned banks, initiated by the NBU, could be one of the possible reasons for the IMF’s postponement of the next IMF tranche for Ukraine.

It is very likely that other Russian-owned banks present in Ukraine will follow in Sberbank’s path.