Failed Franco-Belgian bank Dexia agreed to sell its Turkish subsidiary Denizbank to Russia's Sberbank today.
Sberbank head Herman Gref said the sale was worth 6.47 billion Turkish lira (€2.83 billion) and covered 99.85% of the shares in Denizbank.
Semi-public Sberbank and Dexia launched exclusive talks on the deal two weeks ago after Dexia said that an offer by the Qatar National Bank for Denizbank was too low.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, Belgium, France and Luxembourg raised the amount of state guarantees backing the remnants of Dexia from €45 billion to €55 billion.
First bailed out in 2008 amid the global financial crisis, Dexia was not able to survive subsequent turmoil created by the euro zone debt crisis and in October the three euro zone countries stepped in to wind up the bank.
European banks are back in the spotlight as a pernicious, interconnected sovereign and banking debt crisis takes a sharp turn for the worse with major problems in Spain.
Spanish press reports have said that according to the central bank, two more savings banks now under state administration, CatalunyaCaixa and Novagalicia, will need €9 billion in public aid to restructure their operations.
