A London arbitration court has frozen a minority stake in the Bank of Moscow, in a sign that VTB’s battle for control of the municipal bank run by allies of Yury Luzhkov, the ousted Moscow mayor, is not yet over, reports the FT. The UK court had frozen a 3.9% stake in the Bank of Moscow held by Goldman Sachs after a minority shareholder close to the bank’s management filed suit questioning its acquisition by the asset management arm of VTB, the Russian state bank. The court is yet to issue a decision after hearing the merits of the case. The stake is key for pushing VTB’s overall share in the bank – Russia’s fifth-biggest by assets – above 50%. VTB last week acquired the Moscow city government’s 46.5% stake in the bank for $3.5bn.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Friday, March 4th, 2011 at 4:15 and is featured in The 6am Cut London (4 Mar 2011) . Tagged with bank of moscow, goldman sachs, VTB. Edit this entry.