President SergeyGorkov expects the sale of VEB units Interregional Bank for Settlements of the Telecommunications & PostalServices and GLOBEXCommercial Bank JSC to be completed in the first half of 2017,Banki.ru reported Sept. 30.

Theexecutive noted that interested parties could finish their due diligence of thetwo VEB units in November, with a short list of potential buyers being drawn upin 2017.

Theplanned sale is part of measures aimed at improving the financial position of the lender.

Gorkovalso expects VEB to end both 2016 and 2017 in the red, although 2016's losswill be lower than initially expected, news agency Prime reported the same day.The bank posted an IFRS net loss of 82.8 billion Russian rubles for the firsthalf of 2016.

As of Sept. 29, US$1 wasequivalent to 63.12 Russian rubles.