By DPA
London : British banking group Barclays agreed to a deal Monday to buy Russian retail bank Expobank for 373 million pounds ($745 million)), Barclays said.
The Moscow-based operation, which has 32 branches across western Russia, caters for more than 250,000 customers.
The acquisition was expected to go through by July and would result in Barclays first retail banking presence Russia.
Frits Seegers, chief executive of Barclays’ global retail and commercial banking arm, said the group had been keen to get into the Russian retail market “for some time.”
A spokesman for Barclays said the plan was to eventually rebrand Expobank as Barclays following a period of consultation with customers. This would then be followed by an expansion drive of the network.
Expobank, one of Russia’s top 50 banks by network size, was founded in 1994 and now has 1,300 employees. As at the end of December 2007 it had net assets of 93 million pounds.