By Andrei Skvarsky.
Wounded European banks UniCredit Group, Raiffeisen, Societe Generale and KBC Group are the next most likely targets for acquisition-hungry Russian behemoth Sberbank.
Sberbank, which has already gobbled up Austria’s VBI and is looking at Dexia’s Turkish unit, is keen for more action in Western European countries bombed out by the debt crisis, according to UralSib analyst Leonid Slipchenko.
Belgium’s KBC, Austria’s Raiffeisen, France’s Societe Generale and Italy’s UniCredit “all have a large presence in Central and Eastern Europe and have been heavily hit by the recent debt crisis, and thus intend to divest assets in the medium term”, Slipchenko says.
Sberbank may, however, come up against political barriers in bidding for the four banks’ Russian assets. “The above-mentioned banks are all well-known institutions and have long histories and strong links to their countries. European officials have recently shown anxiety over large local banks becoming acquisition targets,” Slipchenko says.
While Raiffeisen, Societe Generale and UniCredit are still trying to keep their Russian business afloat, KBC has put its Absolut Bank up for sale, joining the ranks of foreign lenders that have been curtailing their Russian operations and include HSBC and Barclays.
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