BoNY suspends conversion of Sberbank shares into receipts due to limit
MOSCOW. Feb 6 (Interfax) - Bank of New York Mellon on Tuesday suspended the conversion of Sberbank of Russia shares into depositary receipts due to monitoring of restrictions on foreign ownership, the depositary reported.
At the end of January, Sberbank and BoNY warned investors that the Russian bank's depositary receipt program had practically reached its limit.
Sberbank finished converting its GDR (global depositary receipts) into ADR (American depositary receipts) in order to merge the two receipt programs on December 19. As a result, its GDR were converted into Level I ADR. These ADR represent the rights to four Sberbank shares.
In the middle of last September, Sberbank conducted a secondary public offering (SPO), placing 1.713 billion ordinary shares (7.58% of its charter capital) belonging to the Russian Central Bank on international and Russian exchanges. These shares were placed at 93 rubles each, or $3.04. GDR were placed at $12.16 each. The Central Bank earned $5.2 billion from the SPO, and Sberbank in its entirety was valued at $68.7 billion.
Sberbank's charter capital comprises 21.587 billion ordinary shares and 1 billion preferred shares, par value 3 rubles each.
Russian law currently places two limitations on the placement and circulation of securities abroad: no more than 25% of the total number of on type of shares and no more than 50% of the placed number of shares.
