Russia's VTB shareholders approve $4.3 billion additional share issue

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's second-largest bank VTB will issue additional shares worth 301.96 billion roubles ($4.32 billion) to top up the Russian state's stake, the bank said on Monday.

The Russian state will pay for the shares in cash and non-cash assets at a private subscription, the bank said after shareholders approved the issue. The par value of the 30,196 billion shares issued will be 0.01 roubles.

VTB Chief Executive Andrei Kostin said in November it was "no secret" the bank had capital problems.

The banking sector as a whole returned a small profit for 2022, around 12 times lower than the year before, with Western sanctions over Russia's actions in Ukraine particularly targeting financial institutions.

The Bank of Russia late last year sold bailed-out Otkritie Bank to VTB for 340 billion roubles, a takeover that analysts said would help VTB resolve its capital issues.

VTB can use the additional share issue to buy common shares in Russian National Commercial Bank (RNKB), one of the largest lenders in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow annexed from Kyiv in 2014. Ukraine has demanded Russia hand back Crimea.

Russia's dominant lender Sberbank this month announced plans to begin operating in Crimea.

($1 = 69.9000 roubles)

(Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Edmund Blair)