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Watchdog: Buyback of VTB Bank shares may attract pvt hldrs to mkt
MOSCOW, Feb 3 (PRIME) -- The buyback of Russia’s second largest bank VTB Bank from its minority individual shareholders could attract private investors to the stock market, the Federal Service for Financial Markets’ Director Dmitry Pankin said Friday.
“Despite that these measures are not market, they could draw private investors to the stock market,” Pankin said, adding that this move is not to violate regulations linked with insider and manipulative operations.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin asked VTB management to work out a resolution for buying back shares sold to individuals as part of the IPO.
Minority shareholders acquired their stakes in the bank during a so-called people’s initial public offering (IPO) held in 2007, when the bank sold 22.5% of its shares. State-controlled VTB priced its offering at 13.60 kopecks, making its stock affordable to almost 120,000 Russian citizens who bought shares worth U.S. $1.6 billion.
VTB Bank President Andrei Kostin estimated the buy back at 15 billion–18 billion rubles.
