Goldman Banker Hired by VTB Capital to Lead Overseas Unit

May 24, 2011, 5:18 AM EDT By Jason Corcoran

(Updates with VTB’s position in the equity and debt league tables in eighth paragraph.)

May 24 (Bloomberg) -- VTB Capital Plc, the investment- banking arm of Russia’s second-largest lender, hired Atanas Bostandjiev from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as its U.K. and international head.

Bostandjiev will be responsible for Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Americas, according to an e-mailed statement from the bank. He takes up a role previously held by Herbert Moos, who was promoted to chief financial officer of the parent bank in 2009, according to a VTB Capital spokesman who declined to be named, citing company policy.

At Goldman Sachs, Bostandjiev was a partner responsible for the firm’s emerging-market client business in central and eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to the statement. Prior to that, he held senior sales management roles at Merrill Lynch & Co. in London.

VTB Group Chief Executive Officer Andrei Kostin said in March 2008 that the state-run bank would spend half a billion dollars to build VTB Capital into one of the top three investment banks in the former Soviet Union. VTB Capital was the leading organizer of equity sales last year in Russia and the second-biggest underwriter of Eurobonds last year behind Barclays Capital, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Kostin hired more than 100 people from Deutsche Bank AG, including Yuri Soloviev, VTB Capital’s president. The company wants to add to its presence in Moscow, London, Dubai and Singapore by opening a branch in Hong Kong and expanding in the U.S. this year, Soloviev said in an interview last year.

Bostandjiev is “one of the most experienced European market professionals,” Soloviev said in the statement.

Bostandjiev said his priority is to increase VTB Capital’s market share by expanding internationally, according to the e- mail.

Andrea Rachman, a Goldman Sachs spokeswoman in New York, declined to comment.

--Editors: Alexander Nicholson, Jim Silver

To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Corcoran in Moscow at jcorcoran13@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Gavin Serkin at gserkin@bloomberg.net

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