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Raiffeisen Bank International, the largest western bank still doing business in Russia, has halted attempts to sell its unit in the country amid a rapprochement between Washington and Moscow, according to people familiar with the situation.
RBI has been under pressure from regulators and foreign governments including the EU and US to sell its Russia business after President Vladimir Putin launched Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The already complicated sale was further stymied in September after a Russian court froze the shares of RBI’s Russian subsidiary and in January put the bank on the hook for €2bn in damages. RBI said at the time that the legal battle had put a freeze on the transfer of any ownership of shares in its Russian arm.
But RBI took the decision in February to pause sale efforts as Moscow and Washington began to re-engage politically, according to two people with knowledge of the negotiations.
One of the people familiar with the talks said global uncertainty as well as the changing relationship between the US and Russia were behind the halt. “It is in order to assess the situation and if the position of the US might change,” they said.
A third person said efforts to seriously sell had “ceased” for now but the situation internally could change again. They declined to say if geopolitical events or the court case were behind the pause.
RBI said in a statement that the sale process “is ongoing” but added that the court case had stopped the execution of any deal.
“At the moment RBI’s shares in Raiffeisen bank Russia are blocked and a transaction would therefore not be possible at this point in time,” it said. Efforts to wind down the business were still under way in line with the requirements of the European Central Bank, RBI said.
A pause in the sale process comes as the US — which had warned the Austrian bank it risked having its access to the American financial system curtailed because of its Russia ties — has shown serious interest in resuming economic co-operation with Moscow.
Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy, said the US and Russia were discussing “very compelling commercial opportunities” after he met Putin last week for the third time this year.
Authorities and governments had grown impatient with the Austrian lender which had continued to operate in the country even three years after the invasion. Last year, the European Central Bank ordered RBI and other European banks still operating in Russia to accelerate efforts to scale back their businesses there if they were unable to sell them.
RBI has made efforts to shrink its lending activity in Russia and stop taking on new customers but has retained a larger business there than rivals.
However, the court case has hit its earnings. RBI reported a net loss of a net loss of $926mn in the fourth quarter of 2024 — its first quarterly net loss in nine years due to a large impairment charge related to the Russian court ruling. Its appeal is set for April 24.
