Gref expects mass sale of assets among European banks
DAVOS. Jan 27 (Interfax) - European banks will soon start selling assets on a large scale in order to resolve their capital problems as they are unable to raise the necessary amount on the market, Sberbank Chairman German Gref said.
He agreed with the opinion voiced at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the need for additional capitalization among foreign bans is not as critical as it seemed before and can be measured in tens of billions not hundreds of billions.
"Probably that is the right opinion, but it has to be looked at in the context of three trends. First - growing capital requirements for Basel III. Second - the very difficult situation on the market in terms of raising additional capital. If the situation was a normal one then of course the figures they are talking about would not present a serious problem. But with the current state of the market even such negligible figures require great effort to be raised on the market. Third - we see a general trend towards lower demand for credits, deleveraging, which in the end puts under question the profitability of banks and the growth of their assets in Europe," Gref told the press.
"Among the optimists and pessimists there are realists, which I consider myself to be and I say the problems are not critical but they are not easy either. We are likely to see a mass sale of assets soon because that is the most realistic way to raise capital for European banks," the Sberbank chief said.