05 October 2012, 02:01 / Finance

The government may extend the method of selling Sberbank shares to the entire privatization

During the placement of Sberbank, only those who submitted an application through the Moscow Exchange received full shares. In this way, it was supported by the Central Bank - the main shareholder of both the bank and the exchange. The government can extend this practice to all privatization Anton Trifonov Maxim Tovkaylo S. Porter / Vedomosti

During Sberbank's recent placement, investors could buy shares in two ways: on the over-the-counter market, through the organizing banks, and directly, through the Moscow Exchange. The exchange had an advantage: 10% (with the possibility of increasing to 15%) of Sberbank's package was reserved for it, and applications in this volume were satisfied 100%. All other requests were granted selectively.

This was a conscious decision to support Russian infrastructure, a Central Bank official and a government official admitted. Only 3% of the package was placed through the exchange, but this approach is also possible in subsequent privatization transactions, a government official said: “But this issue will be resolved separately in each specific case.”

“The exchange should have advantages,” another Vedomosti source said.

This method was used for the first time, but there is no talk of forcibly bringing investors to the exchange, says Alexander Afanasyev, chairman of the board of the Moscow Exchange: if there was only one book, then yes, but there were several of them, and creating advantages for the domestic market in an economic way is normal. “This practice is widely used in local markets,” Afanasiev knows, “and there are other methods, for example, a discount when purchasing through a local market.”

The mechanism has been created, now other companies can use it and, most likely, these will be high-quality issuers; other small investors are unlikely to be interested, says Sberbank Deputy Chairman Bella Zlatkis.

Without consideration, not all, but only very small applications for Sberbank shares were satisfied 100%, she continues, and primarily from individuals. The portfolio manager said that he submitted an application through the exchange for 100 million rubles. and got everything I wanted. The calculation was for 10% of the package, there were fewer applications and all of them were satisfied, explains a Central Bank employee. “We received only 30% of the application in Moscow through the organizers,” complains another portfolio manager with an application for 1 billion rubles. Two of his colleagues also received about a third of the application through the organizers.

This is a small fraction of what is needed to support a domestic investor, and if the government is concerned about the problem, this is a step in the right direction, says Andrei Gritsenko, CEO of Capital Asset Management: “The main thing is that experience should not be the only one.”