Foreign investors have placed orders for about $3bn in new shares in Sberbank, Russia’s largest savings bank, two people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, as the bank’s board prepared to price what could be Russia’s largest offering. The domestic rights offering of up to 3.5m new shares has been slammed by some western investors as overtly bureaucratic, and as aimed at enriching a handful of billionaire businessmen, including Nafta Moskva owner Suleiman Kerimov, who already owns shares in the bank. “This is clearly an insider issue,” said one western fund manager. “This can go up another 25 per cent, no problem.” He said the bank looked to have been deliberately “long arming foreign investors” by making the process for subscribing to shares so cumbersome. The banks did not hold any roadshows and did not translate its share prospectus.

This entry was posted by Helen Thomas on Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 at 4:40 and is filed under Capital markets. Tagged with sberbank. Edit this entry.