VTB not buying Bank Petrocommerce - paper
MOSCOW. Sept 16 (Interfax) - The VTB Group's deal to buy Bank Petrocommerce has been called off, business daily Vedomosti reported Monday, citing a source at VTB.
VTB wanted to pay for Petrocommerce with oil company Tekhneftinvest, but the parties could not agree on the valuation of the bank or the oil assets, the paper said.
Tekhneftinvest is the former company of Fyodor Khoroshilov, the former head of the Tyumen branch of oil company Sibneft. VTB acquired the firm for debts following the 2008 financial crisis. Tekhneftinvest's main assets are licenses to produce oil at seven blocks.
VTB head Andrei Kostin said the state bank intends to offer Tekhneftinvest in a tender in October.
Reports that VTB was considering buying Petrocommerce emerged on the market in early August. VTB conducted an appraisal of the bank. A source familiar with the situation told Interfax that the deal could be done as an asset swap.
Kostin said at the end of August that VTB does not rule out the possibility of acquiring banking assets, but had not made any final decisions. He also said that it was "unlikely" that any deals would be conducted before the end of the year.
Bank Petrocommerce was Russia's 27th largest bank by assets at the end of the first half of 2013, according to the Interfax-100 ranking of the country's lenders. Lukoil president Vagit Alekperov and vice president Leonid Fedun are the beneficiaries of 79.4% of shares in the bank, and Fedun issues instructions on voting at the lender's shareholder meetings.
