VTB could place additional shares for RWB deal by Sept 1, raise 300-400 bln rubles - exec
ST. PETERSBURG. June 3 (Interfax) - VTB could place additional shares and close its deal with the Wildberries-Russ Group (RWB) by the end of summer, Dmitry Pyanov, VTB First Deputy CEO, told reporters.
"It will not close before July 20, because that's the cutoff date [for dividend payments]. We work in the assumption that this deal will close in the summer, essentially in August," Pyanov said.
VTB had previously planned to issue additional shares, the bulk of which would go toward the RWB deal, in early autumn.
"We assumed there'd be a 'summer gap' when it's hard to find many investors during the summer months. Now we understand that the summer months won't prevent the additional share issue closing by September 1," Pyanov said.
VTB could raise 300 billion-400 billion rubles with the SPO. "We want to raise 300 billion-400 billion rubles," he said.
VTB and RWB have agreed on a strategic partnership, the first step in which will be for VTB to buy a 5% stake in RWB's subsidiary bank, with the possibility of increasing it in future. VTB is planning a new SPO in order to fund its partnership. The bank plans to place up to 6,292,651,866 shares, which is around 49% of its ordinary shares, in a public subscription at 87 rubles per share. The share issue at that price will be up to 547.5 billion rubles. VTB CEO Andrei Kostin said earlier that the limit might not be used up.
Pyanov said VTB already had a pool of potential cornerstone institutional investors willing to participate in the SPO, but that the bank would not disclose them.
"We don't have to disclose the investor list. We have exercised this right for virtually all share issues we've conducted since 2022. We will exercise this right now, meaning there will be no public announcement of who purchased our shares, unless the investors themselves want to," he said.
VTB expects the return on investment from its partnership with RWB to be around 30%.
"What's going on with marketplace banks? They've simply exploded, they've increased their profits, but they're still focused above all on payments and don't penetrate their 80 million client base deeply. So our aim is to gain access to these clients and ensure they receive the full range of banking products that the platforms and their banks currently don't offer. This is a big step for us, because we want to develop retail and achieve new metrics - 30 million clients isn't enough for us," VTB's Kostin said, explained the goal of the partnership for VTB.
Pyanov said that in preparation for settlement for the deal, RWB would consolidate all assets involved in the partnership at Wildberries Bank (WB Bank), in which VTB will acquire a stake.
VTB has the opportunity to increase its stake in WB Bank, Kostin said. "But this will depend how successful this collaboration appears to us in the coming year, at least," he said.
The platform economy is currently burgeoning in Russia. "But, on the other hand, these [marketplace] banks probably also have their limits in terms of further exponential growth. I think we've got his collaboration at the time and will take it further. We believe it'll definitely benefit us. We'll see in a year or two at most. If we don't get bloated with clients within two years, then we haven't assessed the situation correctly. If we get bloated, then that's good," Kostin said.
