By Andrei Skvarsky.
Sberbank and VTB, Russia’s two state-controlled banking giants, have complained to the government that foreign banks are getting most of the mandates to sell shares in the current national privatisation programme.
In a joint letter to Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, whose duties include general oversight of Russia’s finance system, chief executives German Gref of Sberbank and Andrei Kostin of VTB asked for legal guarantees of participation of one or more “robust” Russian banks in organising each privatisation deal.
The Gref-Kostin initiative has been turned down by the government, according to Russian daily Kommersant.
VTB Capital, a Sberbank unit and Troika Dialog, which is being acquired by Sberbank, have all been named as part of the 23-strong list of advisers for state selloffs.
The privatisation programme, to be in effect from 2011 to 2015, involves the slashing of state interest in 11 firms, including Sberbank itself, oil company Rosneft, the Aeroflot airline, railways monopoly RZD and Sheremetyevo International Airport.
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