Russia’s Sberbank sells its subsidiaries in Central and Eastern European markets

Sberbank’s European branch, Sberbank Europe AG  based in Vienna, said they had signed an agreement to sell its subsidiaries in these five countries. Their combined assets are believed to be around €7.33 billion, and at the end of 2020, they operated 162 branch offices serving some 600,000 clients.

“Sberbank Europe AG has decided to reduce its presence in Central and Eastern Europe to focus on priority markets and explore new business models,” the bank said in a press release.  This means that Sberbank will reduce its presence in Europe to only three European markets – Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic.

“The purchasers have a large regional presence as well as a clear vision of future development, supporting further growth of the banks, and ensuring that the clients will continue to receive services of the same high quality… The closing of the transaction must get approvals by national and international regulators, which is expected to be completed in 2022,” the bank said.

Russian news agency Oreanda reported that the deal is believed to be worth around €500 million.

Earlier this year, Sberbank announced plans to withdraw from the European market and also to sell its majority share in the Croatian food and retail giant Fortenova, which also includes the Slovenian retail chain Mercator.

The Russian bank had been the most significant single creditor of the collapsed Croatian farming and food conglomerate Agrokor, once a major food and retail company in the Balkans, which at its peak had more than 60,000 employees in dozens of subsidiaries across the region.

Weighed down by years of expansion fueled by aggressive borrowing, the company was saved from the brink of bankruptcy in 2017 when it was put under state administration via a special law nicknamed Lex Agrokor passed in the Croatian Parliament. A deal that replaced creditors’ claims with equity was finalised in 2018.

Sberbank, which had a claim of €1.1 billion, became the owner of around 30 percent of the reformed company, which was renamed Fortenova, and in 2019, Sberbank’s share was reportedly increased to 40 percent.

Sberbank has been present on the Croatian market since 2012 after Sberbank Europe had acquired Vienna-based Volksbank International, an international banking group that had already operated a subsidiary in Croatia. Currently, Sberbank operates 31 branch offices in Croatia and ranks eighth in terms of total assets on the local banking market.