Italy gives final approval to Intesa funding of Russian oil deal

Italy has given its final blessing to a 5.2 billion euro loan made in January by bank Intesa SanPaolo to finance the privatisation of a stake in Russia's biggest oil company, after checking to ensure the deal did not breach sanctions. Russia sold a 19.5 percent stake in Rosneft in December for 10.5 billion euros, in one of the biggest transfers of Russian state assets into private hands since the 1990s.
The stake was bought by a consortium made up of Qatar and the oil trading company Glencore, which together provided 2.8 billion euros. The consortium borrowed funds from Intesa, Italy's biggest retail bank, to make up most of the rest of the purchase price.
The deal was subject to regulatory scrutiny in Italy because of the size of Intesa's loan and the potential for entanglement in EU sanctions on Russia. Rosneft itself, its boss Igor Sechin and Russia's main state banks are all subject to sanctions imposed after Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
However, Italy's Financial Security Committee (FSC), a government body which includes officials from the finance, foreign and justice ministries, the central bank, finance police and anti-mafia prosecutors, found no sanctions violations.
The FSC, which gave preliminary blessing to the deal in January, concluded its inquiry in early March, officials said.