Russia's Sberbank plans to strengthen its position in domestic corporate and investment banking this year, as foreign banks reduce their presence, and expects to clinch deals worth $83 billion, a board member told Reuters.
Alexander Bazarov, who heads Sberbank's corporate clients business, said the bank already ranked as Russia's top lender with more than 10 trillion roubles ($331 billion) in assets and plans around 700 deals worth 2.5 trillion this year.
"It is all about the corporate and investment banking business, of which around 10 percent comes from investment banking," Bazarov said, adding that deals include syndicated loans, Eurobond issues and loans.
Last year, Sberbank bought Moscow's oldest brokerage Troika Dialog for $1 billion, taking a step towards transforming the former Soviet state savings bank into a leading universal bank in the region.
The European debt crisis along with tough global debt markets have already pushed Sberbank's lending volumes to a three-year-high in December, with borrowers switching to Russian banks.
Sberbank in December provided around 850 billion roubles to corporate borrowers and more than 190 billion to retail customers, up from around 580 billion and more than 120 billion in November, respectively.
"Should we attribute (our) results to problems around Western banks or we just started to work better? I would like to think it is both," Bazarov said. He added that Sberbank had seen strong lending growth in January year-on-year but not as high as in December.
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