REUTERS
Russia's VTB Group has announced that a deal to sell its Ukrainian-based BM Bank is at the final stage, according to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
"[It's] at the final stage now – certain approvals are in the pipeline there. But the deal isn't large," VTB head Andrey Kostin told reporters while commenting on the sale of the Ukrainian bank, RIA Novosti reported.
Late in February, Kostin announced VTB had four bidders wishing to buy BM Bank. These were mainly Ukrainian businessmen, he said. He expected the situation around the bank would clear up by the end of March.
As UNIAN reported earlier, VTB Bank and BM Bank were among the banks sanctioned in Ukraine.
On March 16, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed a decree bringing into effect a National Security and Defense Council decision to impose one-year sanctions against subsidiaries of Russian state-owned banks, namely Sberbank, Prominvestbank, VTB Bank, BM Bank, and VS Bank.
Read alsoNorvik Banka discloses names of buyers of Sberbank's Ukrainian subsidiaryRussia's Sberbank announced on March 27 it had signed a legally binding agreement on the sale of Sberbank PJSC (Ukraine) to a consortium of investors. These are Latvian-based Norvik Banka and a Belarusian private company reportedly owned by Said Gutseriev, the son of the owner of the Russian oil producer, Russneft.
However, the National Bank of Ukraine said it had not received any official notification from the potential investors that plan to acquire Sberbank's Ukrainian subsidiary.