Russian businessman and lawmaker Suleiman Kerimov is in talks with the majority shareholders of Russia’s Vozrozhdenie bank about buying their stake in the lender, sources close to the talks said.
The bank’s majority owners, brothers Dmitry and Alexei Ananyev, are required by the Russian central bank to reduce their stake to 10%, under the terms of a bailout for another lender the brothers controlled.
The two sources said Kerimov, whose family control Russia’s top gold producer Polyus, is one of the possible buyers of Vozrozhdenie in talks with the Ananyev brothers, and that no deal had yet been signed, Reuters reported.
One of the sources said that Kerimov, who is under investigation by French prosecutors for tax fraud, planned to travel from France to Russia to finalise the deal.
Kerimov was arrested at Nice airport in the south of France in November last year. A judge said he could be released while his case is being investigated, but he would have to seek permission to travel outside the Nice region.
