MOSCOW, RUSSIA — VTB said it will not own a controlling stake in Rustranscom, Russia’s largest grain railcar owner, within a year, Reuters reported on July 30.

VTB did not say how this would happen. The announcement comes after Russia introduced a series of taxes on grain exports, which it hopes will help with domestic food inflation.

"We have included a company that owns Rustranscom in the list of companies held for sale," Dmitry Pyanov, VTB's chief financial officer, told reporters in comments cleared for publication on Friday. "We believe that we will lose control of this company in the short term - on a horizon of a year or earlier.

"It is, in fact, a high probability that we will lose control over this company by one action or another. It may not be a transaction, not a corporate agreement, to change control."

Pyanov would not provide further details.

After a series of acquisitions, VTB became the largest operator of Russia’s grain export infrastructure. It has stakes in three grain export terminals on the Black Sea.

It sold half of its grain business to two Russian businessmen in 2020 and said it would stay in the business for the next three to five years, Reuters reported.

The remaining stake in Rustranscom belongs to its founders - businessmen Konstantin Zasov and Konstantin Sintsov.