OREANDA-NEWS. March 19, 2009. Sberbank consented to restructure the debts of Oleg Deripaska’s automotive group GAZ, pledging to give support to the company that is on the verge of bankruptcy and in negotiations with other creditors. “We’re prepared to restructure GAZ’s obligations and will try to convince other creditors to do the same.

The main thing is to avoid bankruptcy,” Sberbank CEO and board chairman German Gref said Wednesday. Gref made a statement two days after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev requested Russian banks to abstain from measures aimed at pushing into bankruptcy big overleveraged concerns. GAZ owes in the aggregate around RUB 45 bn, with nearly half of this sum payable in 1Q 2009. It should be noted that RUB 15.5 bn from the auto maker’s credit portfolio falls to state-run banks. Earlier GAZ offered its creditors the option of restructuring debts via extending existing lending agreements by 5 years, providing a 24-month grace period to repay the principal and a 6-month grace period for interest payback.

Gref thinks it’s irrational to saddle GAZ with immediate and total debt repayment, as this would push the auto producer into bankruptcy, resulting in job losses, which means that banks would hardly be able to recover their cash. “I do not believe that if any bank takes to manage GAZ for its debts, this bank will be able to run the auto maker more efficiently than this is done at the moment,” Gref said. “If we take a tough stance against all debtors, Sberbank, with assets equaling RUB 7.5 tn, could bankrupt half of Russian enterprises,” he added.