GE Capital, a financial arm of US corporation General Electric, had resumed negotiations over the sale of its Russian banking asset, GE Money Bank, executives of several Russian banks told Gazeta.ru.
An executive of a Russian bank called Igor Kim’s entities as the most likely buyer.
“He won’t buy the bank at a price exceeding its capital, he knows how to push through what he wants," said a source.
The bank’s equity capital is roughly Rub 8.8 bln.
For the record, in July 2011 Otkritie Financial Corporation held talks to acquire GE Money Bank’s Lithuanian subsidiary. At that time financial market sources attributed GE Capital’s decision to retreat from Russia to the fact that it had obtained bailout funds during the crisis, the condition of which was to scale down financial operations in a number of regions.
The Russian Federation is also among the regions which GE Money Bank intends to leave, market participants stated. Investment bankers familiar with the course of the negotiations said that a deal to sell the Russian division was at the final stage, as a buyer was found.
But neither Latvian nor Russian assets were eventually sold. Otkritie Financial Corporation noted that a decision was jointly taken with GE Capital to terminate the agreement on the acquisition of GE Money Bank Latvia.
