By RIA Novosti
Moscow : France’s Societe Generale plans to complete a deal to consolidate a controlling stake in a leading Russian bank on February 11, the president of the bank’s Russian subsidiary said on Monday.
“The purchase of Rosbank will most likely proceed according to schedule, and on February 11 30% of shares will be transferred to the parent structure, to Societe Generale. We already own 20% of Rosbank’s shares and we will, in this way, possess 50% plus one share in mid-February,” Mark-Emmanuel Vives, president of Societe Generale Vostok, said.
Rosbank, one of Russia’s top thirty banks according to the Russian Central Bank, belongs to Russian metals billionaires Vladimir Potanin and Mikhail Prokhorov.
Societe Generale will acquire the share package for $1.7 billion.
Societe Generale, France’s second largest bank in terms of market capitalization, found itself at the center of a fraud scandal in late January, which the bank says cost it 4.9 billion euros ($7 billion) in losses. The bank sustained losses after a trader, Jerome Kerviel, 31, conducted illegal stock market deals.
The losses are unprecedented in global banking history. Police are also investigating whether more bank employees were involved.