X5 Retail Group, Russia's largest food retailer by revenue, is set to receive a €200 million loan from state-controlled bank VTB, a newspaper reported yesterday.

Business daily Vedomosti quoted an unnamed source close to X5's shareholders as saying the 18-month loan was granted by VTB as part of the government's rescue plan for key economic sectors hit by the global financial crisis.

X5 Retail Group NV, formerly Pyaterochka Holding N.V., acts as a holding company for the group of companies that operate retail grocery stores.

The main activity of the company is the development and operation of grocery retail stores. As of December 3, last year, the company operated a retail chain of soft-discount and supermarket stores under the brand names Pyaterochka and Perekrestok in Russia, including Moscow, St Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, Krasnodar, Kazan, Samara, Chelyabinsk, caterinburg and Kiev, Ukraine. As from the end of last year, it operated a chain of 674 stores, of which 309 stores were located in the Moscow area, 244 stores were located in the St Petersburg area and 34 stores were located in the caterinburg area.