MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Sberbank said in a statement Monday that Latvia's Norvik Banka and a Belarusian company will buy 100 percent of the Sberbank Ukrainian subsidiary's shares, adding that the deal is expected to be closed in the first half of 2017.
"We very much hope that if all necessary permits are received and the bank's owner is changed, not only sanctions imposed on it by Ukraine will be lifted, but also sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States that are now applied not only to Russia's Sberbank, but to its subsidiaries as well," the source said.
According to the source, Sberbank hopes to close the deal as soon as possible in accordance with the Ukrainian regulations.
"It is unrealistic that we will receive the regulatory permission quicker than within a month after document feeding. That is why we think that the deal will be closed in the period from late April to late May. These are our optimistic expectations. The conservative scenario prescribes that the deal will be closed till the end of the first half of 2017," the source added.
Later, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko approved the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council's proposal to impose one-year sanctions on subsidiaries of five Russian state banks, including Sberbank and VTB. The subsidiaries are no longer able to take assets out of Ukraine.
National Bank of Ukraine Deputy Governor Kateryna Rozhkova later stated that all Russian banks partly owned by the government were looking to sell their Ukrainian subsidiaries.
