Denizbank deal satiates Sberbank

MOSCOW - Reuters

Europe’s No.2 lender Sberbank expects its proposed takeover of Denizbank to stave off its deal appetite for the time being, but it may still look at Poland should the right opportunity arise, a senior executive said yesterday.

Russia’s Sberbank, with over 11 trillion roubles ($340 billion) in assets, has ramped up activities outside the former Soviet Union and last week entered exclusive talks with bailed-out Franco-Belgian lender Dexia to buy Turkey’s Denizbank.

“If the acquisition happens, it will be our biggest purchase to date but we can comfortably afford it in terms of our capital adequacy position,” Anton Karamzin, Chief Financial Officer at Sberbank, said in an interview.

Headed by former economy minister German Gref, Sberbank is too big to expand further in its core market, and is keen to push into Turkey and Poland. It has no plans to expand in Western Europe.