Sberbank still has not decided on share buyback and conversion of prefs - Karamzin
MOSCOW. Sept 1 (Interfax) - Top Russian bank Sberbank R has still not decided on the timing and parameters of a share buyback, as well as a possible conversion of its preferred shares, the bank's deputy CEO, Anton Karamzin, said during a conference call for analysts on Wednesday.
When asked if Sberbank plans to take advantage on the situation on the market in view to a share buyback, Karamzin said: "We discussed a buyback a certain time but we can't make any actual statements on this now. A share buyback is, for us, one of the possible options. We still have not made any decision in regards to a buyback, its size and timing".
At the start of the summer, the Central Bank of Russia's First Deputy Chairman, Alexei Ulyukayev said that Sberbank's supervisory board has been discussing the possibility of buying back a portion of its shares from the market in order to support its market quotations. Karamzin later said that the buyback might take place close to the time of the privatization.
Sberbank President German Gref told journalists on Wednesday that the decision to privatize a part of the bank's share packet in September-October might be made in the coming weeks.
During the conference call, Karamzin said that no decisions have been made so far for converting the bank's preferred shares into common shares, the possibility of which Gref mentioned at the bank's annual shareholder meeting in June of this year.
"There aren't any forecasts or decisions, which we might share. We haven't made any decision besides what Mr. Gref said earlier," Karamzin said.
It was earlier reported that Gref said at the bank's annual shareholder meeting that Sberbank is thinking about reducing the share of prefs in its capital or even fully converting them into to common shares. "We're looking at this problem. It isn't a simple problem. It's been reviewed several times at meetings and with the supervisory board. Therefore, moving to a single [type of] share would be very difficult without harming various interests. The problem doesn't' have a direct and straightforward solution," Gref said.
However, he added that "it would be logical" to reduce "or totally liquidate" the share of prefs in the bank's charter capital.
Sberbank's charter capital comes to 67,760,844 rubles divided into 21,586,948,000 common shares and 1 billion preferred shares each at a face value of three rubles.