MOSCOW, July 7 (RIA Novosti) - Gazprombank's net profit calculated to Russian Accounting Standards decreased 20% year on year to 10.6 billion rubles ($461 million) in the first half of 2008, the bank said in a statement on Monday.
Gazprombank, one of Russia's three largest banks, yielded 17.5 billion rubles ($716 million) of net profit in 2007.
Founded in 1990, Gazprombank, which has about 2 million retail clients and over 36,000 corporate clients, is one of the top five banks in Central and Eastern Europe, with assets totaling 1.088 trillion rubles ($43 billion) and equity capital of 88.3 billion rubles ($3.5 billion) as of April 2007.
Russian energy giant Gazprom said in June it could sell its stake in Gazprombank, its banking arm, either through a direct sale or an IPO.
Gazprombank has been estimated as worth $25 billion.
