Sberbank considering ways to reduce share of preferred stock in equity - Gref
MOSCOW. June 3 (Interfax) - Sberbank Russia is considering ways to reduce the share of preferred stock in equity, including conversion of all preferred shares into ordinary shares, although there is no simple answer to the issue, Sberbank President and CEO German Gref said.
"We are considering this issue. It is not a simple problem. We have looked at it at meetings, at supervisory board meetings several times. In the given configuration, moving to unified shares is fairly complicated without infringing the rights of one or another interests," Gref said during the annual shareholders' meeting on Friday.
It would be "logical" to reduce the share of preferred stock in the structure of capital or liquidate it entirely, he said.
But at a news conference following the AGM, Sergei Ignatyev, the chairman of the Central Bank, the controlling shareholder in Sberbank, said that the analysis of the preferred share question is still in the preliminary stages.
"We have only just begin to discuss this item a little bit. I am not promising anything," Ignatyev said.
Sberbank charter capital totals 67.761 billion rubles split into 21.587 billion ordinary and 1 billion preferred shares, each with par value of 3 rubles.
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