Deutsche Bank, Italy's Mediobanca and financial investors are in talks to buy a stake in Russia's second-largest bank, state-owned Vneshtorgbank, a German newspaper reported on Sunday.
Vneshtorgbank will decide by the end of the year which European investors it wants to buy a 10-percent stake that was put on the block, Handelsblatt quoted Vneshtorgbank Chief Executive Andrej Kostin as saying.
The bank hopes to increase the stake held by investors to 49 percent over the next four to five years and could even become majority-controlled by the private sector in the long run, he said.