VTB looks to the short term as well as the long

Bank of Moscow is not the only Russian bank to have attracted the attentions of VTB Group in recent weeks. In early December, the group’s investment banking arm, VTB Capital, announced that it had acquired a 19.28% stake in Rosbank, which is majority owned by France’s Société Générale. Unlike the proposed long-term strategic acquisition of Bank of Moscow, however, VTB’s interest in Rosbank is widely viewed as a purely short-term financial investment. Although the purchase price was not disclosed, local analysts believe that the cost of the acquisition of the minority stake was equivalent to around 2.5% of VTB Group’s capital.