VTB board member Olga Dergunova will be appointed to head the Federal Property Management Agency, Vedomosti reported Wednesday, citing unnamed government sources.
Documents confirming the nomination are not yet draw up, but her candidacy is the most realistic and she has the support of First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, said one government administration source.
Dergunova was the head of Microsoft in Russia from 1995 through 2007, when she moved to VTB, where she now oversees the work of foreign subsidiaries of the bank.
The Federal Property Management Agency manages state property and is responsible for implementing privatization plans.
Meanwhile, the government placed majority stakes of power grids FSK and MRSK Holding on a list of assets that cannot be sold to private owners, making it unlikely that they will be part of the government's privatization drive in the near term.
President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a decree that made 79.55 percent of FSK and 53.69 percent of MRSK so-called strategic assets, alongside with 60.38 percent of power giant Rushydro, according to his press secretary Dmitry Peskov.
That means that any further privatization will need fresh approval by Putin before it can go ahead.
"This decree is aimed at preserving the interests of the state as the main shareholder," Peskov told Reuters.
All three firms have been named on recent privatization wish lists, although the multibillion-dollar plan remains in its early stages with a 10 percent sale of lender VTB the only notable disposal.
