Russian banking group VTB is not interested in acquiring Citi’s operations in the country, Interfax reported, citing VTB chief Andrei Kostin.
Speaking to the reporters at the Eastern Economic Forum, Kostin said VTB would only consider acquiring the US bank’s assets if offered for free.
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Kostin said: “We have been sidelined from the management of our overseas banks, which is billions of euros. And so we very actively supported the adoption of the presidential decree on the prohibition of free sale.
“Of course, there is demand for these banks, but it seems to us that the principle of reciprocity should come into play here. We know that Western banks are interested in swaps. But it would be wrong just to pay some serious money and be left with nothing ourselves.”
In April last year, Citi announced plans to close retail business in 14 countries, including Russia, as part of a restructuring.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Citi expanded the scope of its Russian exit to include commercial banking business.
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By GlobalDataNotably, in August 2021, VTB made a non-binding legal proposal to buy Citi’s retail arm, but in January this year, VTB CFO Dmitry Pianov told Interfax it would not buy the assets.
At the end of the second quarter of 2022, Citi’s total exposure to Russia stood at $8.4bn.
Despite the geopolitical tensions, Citi did not give up on trying to exit Russia, a move which is anticipated to cost it some $170m over the next 18 months.
The retaliatory sanctions in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine have forced Russian banks, including VTB, to assess their overseas operations.
Kostin noted that VTB plans to maintain operations in China, India, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, and other friendly countries.
“Unlike other banks, we are not leaving, excluding Georgia probably as the issue is pressing there. <…>, Unlike Sberbank, Alfa-Bank, we maintained our subsidiary in Kazakhstan.” TASS quoted Kostin as saying.
“We have banks in our key partner jurisdictions of China, India, Vietnam, excluding Arab countries, and CIS countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,” Kostin noted.
