Putin clears Rosbank’s purchase of Societe Generale’s Russian assets

MOSCOW, Dec 24 (Reuters): Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday signed a decree clearing the way for Rosbank to purchase stakes in leading Russian companies owned by Societe Generale.
The decree said that Rosbank will be able to buy SocGen's stakes in energy producers such as Rosneft and Gazprom, metals companies including Norilsk Nickel and Severstal, and other leading Russian blue chip firms.
Societe Generale declined to comment. The bank had an exposure of 22.4 billion euros to Russia as of end-June 2021, according to the European Banking Authority's (EBA) data.
Companies from so-called "unfriendly" countries - those that announced sanctions against Russia following the Kremlin's decision to send troops into Ukraine in February 2022 - need special dispensation from Moscow for transactions involving Russian assets.
Interfax news agency said SocGen's separate stakes in the Russian companies were relatively small, for example, 0.04 per cent in Gazprom and 0.02 per cent in Alrosa, the world's biggest diamond-producing company.
However, the combined value of assets under consideration are "billions of roubles".
Societe Generale pulled out of Russia and closed the sale of its local unit Rosbank to the Interros group, a firm linked to Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin, in May 2022.
Putin has said that Western sanctions are a declaration of economic war on Russia.
Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Russian state assets have been frozen in the West, as well as assets of some Russian businessmen and investors. Germany last year took control of the then Russian-owned Schwedt oil refinery which supplies 90 per cent of Berlin's fuel.
Meanwhile, Russia's central bank will need two to three months to make sure that inflation is steadily declining before taking any decision on interest rate cuts, the bank's governor Elvira Nabiullina told RBC media on Sunday.
The central bank raised its key interest rate by 100 basis points to 16 per cent earlier in December, hiking for the fifth consecutive meeting in response to stubborn inflation, and suggested that its tightening cycle was nearly over.
Nabiullina said it was not yet clear when exactly the regulator would start cutting rates, however.
"We really need to make sure that inflation is steadily decreasing, that these are not one-off factors that can affect the rate of price growth in a particular month," she said.
Nabiullina said the bank was taking into account a wide range of indicators but primarily those that "characterize the stability of inflation".
"This will take two or three months or more - it depends on how much the wide range of indicators that characterize sustainable inflation declines," she said.
The bank will next convene to set its benchmark rate on Feb. 16.