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Gref's global vision: how Sberbank is looking beyond Russia

The acquisition of an investment bank and subsidiaries across emerging Europe are transforming Sberbank from Russia's retail savings bank of choice into a genuine international player, just as Western competitors are retreating. But its management team is treading carefully.
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Gref's global vision: how Sberbank is looking beyond Russia

When the Russian central bank sold $5.2bn of its controlling stake in Sberbank, the country’s largest bank, to investors via the London and Moscow stock exchanges in September 2012, only two Russian equity offerings had been successful all year, totalling less than $450m. Yet Sberbank’s outsized deal ended up more than twice oversubscribed.

Based on the bank’s performance, this should not come as a surprise. Return on Tier 1 capital exceeded 45% in 2011, even though the bank is highly capitalised – its Tier 1 Basel ratio is 11.6%. And this performance has been sustained throughout the crisis years. The other large state-owned Russian banks, VTB and Gazprombank, both suffered multi-billion dollar losses during the financial crisis, and the country's banking sector as a whole, excluding Sberbank, tipped into a loss in 2009.

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