The supervisory board of Russian state-owned banking giant VTB has approved last week the sale of the entire capital of its Serbian subsidiary VTB Banka a.d. Beograd, SEE News reported.
VTB intends to sell the entire capital of VTB Banka which is composed of 7,344,813 shares with a nominal value of 500 dinars ($4.9) per share, the Russian bank said in a filing with the Moscow Stock Exchange earlier this month.
The shares will be sold at a price that is not inferior to their market value, VTB said, adding that the decision to withdraw from the Serbian market was made by the Supervisory Board on June 29.
In the spring of 2017, the first deputy president of VTB, Yuri Soloviev, said two foreign investors expressed interest in the acquisition of VTB Banka.
The bank’s head Andrei Kostin told TASS last week that a buyer for VTB Banka ad Beograd was found in Central Europe.
“In my opinion, the process has gone far enough, there is a buyer there. It’s from one of the countries of Central Europe, not Russia,” Kostin said.
At the same time, he referred to the number of investments in the Serbian bank as “small.”
VTB took control of the Serbian bank in 2013 as a result of the acquisition of the Bank of Moscow. Back then, the name of the Serbian lender was changed to VTB Banka a.d. Beograd from Bank of Moscow.
