By Andrei Skvarsky.
State-owned bank VTB would benefit seriously during its planned partial privatisation from a share pricing measure proposed by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, Renaissance Capital analysts argue.
Sechin last week proposed an amendment to the 2011-2013 privatisation programme to ensure that the starting price of a state company in any privatisation deal should not be lower than the firm’s price during its initial public offering of shares. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin asked the government to take the idea into account.
VTB, Russia’s second biggest lender, is trading its shares at half their IPO price of 136 rubles ($4.37 at today’s exchange rate).
“If indeed such a rule [the measure proposed by Sechin] is implemented, it would significantly reduce medium-term stock overhang risk for VTB,” the RenCap analysts say in a comment.
VTB is to have a 25% stake privatised under the programme, and has a 10% stake set to be sold in 2012.
The current market price of Russia’s biggest lender, state-owned Sberbank, which is also on the privatisation list, is just 10% below its IPO price of 89 rubles per share ($2.86).
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