MOSCOW, March 27 (Reuters) - Moscow-based conglomerate Sistema is in talks to hand 51 percent of shares in its real estate unit, Sistema-Hals, to state bank VTB, a source close to Sistema said on Friday.
"The details of the deal are the topic of negotiations between VTB and Sistema but it is expected that the deal will be complete in April," the source said.
A spokesman for the bank confirmed that VTB was in talks with Sistema on the matter but declined to give details.
A Sistema spokeswoman said the group was in constant talks with creditors on restructuring its debts but declined to comment on the talks.
About 70 percent of the developer's shares are serving as collateral on half of a $700 million loan to Sistema-Hals, according to Reuters calculations.
Sources told Reuters in October that Sistema had to raise the collateral on the loan from roughly 17 percent of Sistema-Hals because of a margin call which resulted from the Russian stock market fall in September.
No. 2 Russian bank VTB, one of the country's largest lenders to the real estate sector, and Sberbank, its larger peer, are expected to become Russia's largest real estate portfolio owners as loan defaults increase and the banks are left with the collateral.
Developers borrowed heavily during Russia's oil-fuelled boom years, when office rents in central Moscow were running at around $2,500 per square metre, and built hectares of lavish new office space and multi-million-dollar flats for Russia's elite.
Rents for top office space have collapsed to $1,000 and below, real estate industry sources have said. Several developers are now in restructuring talks.
Mirax, developer of such high profile projects as the blue glass Federation Tower in the Moscow City financial center, the eventual home of VTB itself, announced restructuring deals with Credit Suisse and bondholders on debt falling due in early 2009.
VTB is suing residential developer PIK for repayment of a 2.7 billion rouble ($80.81 million) loan.. (Reporting by Maria Plis and Melissa Akin)