MOSCOW, RUSSIA — VTB, a Russian state-controlled bank, will sell its 45% stake in Demetra Holding, the country’s largest vertically integrated grain trader, Reuters reported, citing an interview with Andrei Kostin, chief executive officer of VTB.

Demetra has a network of grain elevators, major deep sea grain terminals and its own logistics. It also owns a non-controlling stake in major grain trader United Grain Company (OZK).

Kostin said that VTB, Russia’s second-largest lender, is in negotiations with both Russian and foreign buyers, and a sale would be done before the end of the year.

“We’re coming out of there,” Kostin told Reuters. “It’s decided. We have been out of control for a long time, and we will leave completely.”

He declined to say who the buyers were but clarified that they would be from “friendly” countries, a word Russia uses to describe countries that have not imposed sanctions on Russia following its invasion and ongoing war in Ukraine in February 2022.

Kostin told Reuters that VTB saw few prospects for itself in the grain business, which it entered with a series of major acquisitions in 2019 and 2020, adding that a sanctioned bank in the shareholding hindered the holding.