Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill on the transfer of PAO Promsvyazbank into the ownership of the Federal Agency for State Property Management, the Prime news agency reported March 7.
The Russian Deposit Insurance Agency will acquire shares of Promsvyazbank for up to 150 billion rubles, paying for them with OFZ government bonds received from the federal budget as part of the 2015 Russian banking sector recapitalization program. After that, the DIA will transfer the shares to the Federal Agency for State Property Management.
Promsvyazbank was bailed out by the Russian central bank in December 2017, with the regulator estimating its capital needs at between 100 billion rubles and 200 billion rubles at the time, Prime noted. Under state ownership, the bank will specialize in providing services to Russian defense sector companies to protect other banks from potential U.S. sanctions.
The Russian finance ministry estimates that up to 1 trillion rubles worth of defense sector loans could be transferred to Promsvyazbank from other lenders.
As of March 8, US$1 was equivalent to 57.05 Russian rubles.
