Russia’s Otkritie Abandons Its Bid for GE Money’s Latvian Unit

Otkritie Financial Corp., the brokerage partly owned by VTB Group, is withdrawing a bid for GE Money Bank Latvia to concentrate on the Russian market and its acquisition of Nomos Bank.

“There has been changes to our strategy related to our Nomos acquisition,” Alexey Karakhan, an Otkritie spokesman, said by phone today. “We want to focus on the Russian market so we will not be acquiring GE Money.”

Otkritie agreed in June to buy GE Money for an undisclosed amount in a deal that would have given the Russian lender access to the European Union market. In August, Otkritie bought 19.9 percent in Nomos from the Czech private-equity firm PPF Group. It plans to buy the rest of Nomos within two years, the Moscow- based bank said in an August statement.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jason Corcoran in Moscow at jcorcoran13@bloomberg.net; Aaron Eglitis in Riga at aeglitis@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Brad Cook at bcook7@bloomberg.net