MOSCOW, May 21 (RIA Novosti) - The supervisory board of Sberbank [RTS: SBER] recommended Monday that shareholders approve PricewaterhouseCoopers as the bank's auditor for 2007, a source close to the board said.
The 2007 annual shareholders' meeting of the state-controlled savings bank will be held on November 29.
Earlier, Sberbank chief executive Andrei Kazmin said the bank saw no reason not to cooperate with PwC, which is facing tax claims from Russia's tax authorities. He said the bank has been working with PwC since 1996, even though in certain years Sberbank's auditor reports were drawn up by other firms.
Sberbank is Russia's largest bank. Its founder and main shareholder is the Central Bank, with over 60% of equity capital. More than 200,000 legal entities and individuals are Sberbank's shareholders.
PwC's clients in Russia include the Central Bank and Russia's electricity monopoly Unified Energy System [RTS: EESR]. The company won a tender in April to audit Russia's state-controlled energy giant Gazprom [RTS: GAZP], its client since 1995.
