Russia

Struggling lender Dexia SA said it is in exclusive talks to sell its Turkish Denizbank AS unit to Russia's biggest bank, OAO Sberbank, as the Belgian-French bank continues to sell assets to shore up its balance sheet, The Wall Street Journal reported. No financial information was disclosed, but a person familiar with the talks said a deal could be worth between $3 billion and $4 billion and be "the biggest in Sberbank's history." The details are to be ironed out in the next two weeks, the person added. State-controlled Sberbank is Russia's oldest and largest bank.

Russia's top central banker warned on Wednesday that capital flight is a "serious problem," as newly released figures showed $42 billion has left the country in the first four months of the year, The Wall Street Journal reported. Meanwhile, the stock market and the ruble have slipped to their lowest levels in more than a year, dashing hopes for a rally following Vladimir Putin's re-election as president in March.

China intends to extend renminbi loans to other Brics nations, in another step towards the internationalisation of its currency, the Financial Times reported. The China Development Bank will sign a memorandum of understanding in New Delhi with its Brazilian, Russian, Indian and South African counterparts on March 29, say people familiar with their talks. Under the agreement CDB, which lends mainly in dollars overseas, will make renminbi loans available, while the other Brics nations’ development banks will also extend loans denominated in their respective currencies.

Russia's central bank on Friday unexpectedly cut its key refinancing rate for the first time in a year and a half, citing the uncertain outlook for the global economy, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Still, the Bank of Russia simultaneously raised its deposit rate, and economists said that the rate reshuffle represents no more than a slight easing of monetary policy amid concerns about meeting 2012 inflation targets.

On a snowy Friday evening in late March, Andrei Borodin received a call as he flew out of Moscow on a private jet. Then president of Bank of Moscow, Russia’s fifth-biggest, he found himself under mounting pressure as VTB, the state-controlled lender that is Russia’s second biggest, tried to take over his bank, the Financial Times reported in an analysis. Just hours earlier, the government’s budget watchdog had called for his suspension while it audited what it be­lieved were “dubious” loans to entities re­lated to Bank of Moscow.

Russian conglomerates Kaskol and RU-COM will increase their energy holdings by together acquiring Composite Technology Corp.'s assets out of its U.S. bankruptcy proceeding in a deal valued at more than $11 million, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The Russian companies' joint venture, called CTC Acquisition Corp., will pay $1 million in cash and take on the responsibility for at least $10.5 million of Composite Technology's liabilities, according to a purchase agreement filed Tuesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana., Calif.

The Yukos Oil Company was forced into bankruptcy by the Moscow Arbitration Court five years ago on Monday. Its assets were seized by the state, and its top managers imprisoned or chased from the country. Its legacy of progressive corporate governance and transparency was decimated in favor of shadowy state control, The Moscow Times reported in a commentary. Nobody knows for sure why the Russian government destroyed its most successful post-Soviet company.

Russian businessman Vladimir Antonov is working on a plan for Saab to pay back a loan from the European Investment Bank, the lender which he says has vetoed his proposal to buy into the ailing carmaker, Reuters reported. Antonov has been waiting in the wings to take a stake in Swedish Automobile , the listed entity that owns Saab, but his spokesman said on Thursday that the EIB had decided not to approve the Russian as a shareholder. "We are working on a way to be rid of the EIB loan," Lars Carlstrom said.

Russian cardboard mogul Boris G. Zingarevich has purchased the electric-car manufacturer Think Global AS, marking yet another financial revival for a company that’s faced demise several times throughout its 20-year existence, The Wall Street Journal Bankruptcy Beat blog reported. Previously owned by Norwegian investors who picked it up from Ford Motor Co., the Think brand will now be marketed by the newly created Electric Mobility Solutions AS, and production of the eye-catching two-door cars is set to begin in the first quarter of 2012. Terms of the deal weren’t released.

HSBC on Monday became the latest foreign bank to pull out of retail banking in Russia as large state-owned banks have come to dominate a business that had been expected to provide a rich growth opportunity for foreign institutions, The New York Times DealBook blog reported. HSBC, Europe’s largest bank by assets, said it would close five retail branches in Moscow and St. Petersburg and focus instead on providing global lending services to industrial and corporate clients.