Azerbaijan

Sberbank and the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) have settled a dispute over funds owed to Russia’s largest bank by IBA, an Azeri and Sberbank officials said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. In 2017, state-run IBA proposed a plan to restructure $3.3 billion of its debt and said in July it had received approval from creditors holding 93.9% of the debt involved. As part of the restructuring, which was under Azeri law, IBA obtained a moratorium from a London court preventing creditors from taking action against it without court permission.

The state-run International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) has completed its recovery, plans to set up its own investment company and is preparing for its planned privatisation, the bank’s management board chairman told Reuters. Azeri President Ilham Aliyev ordered in 2015 the privatisation of the oil-rich country’s biggest bank after a clean-up to get rid of distressed assets resulting from poor management, Reuters reported. Two years later IBA proposed a plan to restructure $3.3 billion of its debt, later receiving approval from creditors holding 93.9 percent of the affected debt.

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR is interested in buying Russia’s Antipinsky oil refinery, although specifics from the Russian side are not known yet, SOCAR’s deputy vice president told Reuters. Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, is in talks with potential investors to sell the Siberian refinery after gaining the rights for the majority of the indebted business, Reuters reported. “We are interested in this purchase indeed, but proposals are not defined yet,” Vitaly Baylarbayov told Reuters on Thursday at the annual Caspian Oil and Gas conference in the Azeri capital, Baku.