UrBC, Moscow, December 3, 2010. Bank Uralsib, which is controlled by Nikolai Tsvetkov and has recently made its ownership structure simpler, is going to find a strategic investor of UniCredit or Raiffeisen range or launch an IPO. No other options are available to large private banks because of growing competition with the state-run organizations, the bank reports. However, Russian stockholders are still planning to sell their assets at pre-recession prices, while foreign investors are no longer willing to pay such prices at all, Kommersant refers to a number of experts as saying.
‘Uralsib intends to find a foreign strategic investor of the Italian UniCredit or the Austrian Raiffeisen range,’ the bank’s Deputy Chairman Alexander Dementiev told The Financial Times.