VTB not planning to leave Moscow Exchange

VLADIVOSTOK. Sept 6 (Interfax) - VTB intends to remain a public bank and is not planning to delist from the Moscow Exchange , the state lender's CEO, Andrei Kostin told reporters on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum.

"Not at all at this point," Kostin said when asked if VTB is considering leaving the Moscow Exchange.

"On the contrary, we always fight for our exchange. Actually, back in 2019 we proposed to both the government and the Central Bank to carry out listings only in Russia, bar companies from doing it abroad. They didn't support us, said this is freedom of entrepreneurship. Well, and of course the issuers, at least, also didn't want this. But you see what happened then," Kostin said.

VTB, one of the first Russian banks to be hit by western sanctions, ended its Global Depositary Receipt program on September 1. The bank placed the GDRs on the London Stock Exchange in 2007. Some 123,000 individuals participated in VTB's "people's IPO," buying 40.6 billion rubles worth of the bank's shares. The bank carried out two secondary offerings in 2011 and 2013.