* CEO calls for support for real estate developers
* Says provisions to rise until end 2010
* BTA deal should be examined carefully, c.banker says
* Collateral sell-off could help clear provisions
(Adds quotes on housing market)
MOSCOW, June 26 (Reuters) - Russia's Sberbank believes there will be a housing shortage on the domestic real estate market as early as next summer due to the lack of new investments from troubled developers, its CEO said on Friday.
"We need to support developers in any way possible, through government demand, lending policy, and stimulation of household demand to avoid a fall in prices, company (developers') bankruptcies, and then a big rise in prices," German Gref, CEO of Russia's largest lender, told Vesti television in a broadcast interview.
Russian banks, including state-controlled Sberbank, are heavily exposed to the hard-hit construction sector, and a number of developers have already started painful restructuring talks.
Lenders have also begun to seize many of the developers' assets.
"We already have such real estate... We are beginning to offer it to the market and it is depressing short-term prices," Gref said in the interview.
Gref made the remark despite the fact that earlier this month he fired an executive who forecast bad loans could spark a major sell-off of real estate that had been pledged as collateral with Russian banks.
However, Gref said earlier Friday that the current difficulties would not last beyond the mid-term, and that the bulk of current bad loan provisions would be cleared within three to four years.
"In three to four years we can get back most of the provisions for bad loans, in part by selling off collateral," Gref said at Friday's Sberbank AGM.
Bankers and analysts have said state-run lenders holding the lion's share of potentially lucrative industrial assets as security could parlay the collateral into huge profits.
BTA DEAL UNCERTAIN
Sberbank supervisory board head Sergei Ignatyev told shareholders Sberbank should take a cautious approach to the possible purchase of Kazakhstan's BTA bank, given its recent difficulties. "The bank (BTA) is a big one with big problems. So it should be examined thoughtfully," Ignatyev, who also heads the Russian central bank, told a press conference.
Russia's worsening economy has also forced Sberbank to set aside provisions for 7 percent of its own portfolio, and analysts have said this may discourage the bank from pursuing acquisitions in the near term.
PROFITABLE DESPITE PROVISIONS
Gref reiterated that Sberbank would be profitable this year as a result of cost cuts despite rising non-performing loans. The government has set aside funds to recapitalise state banks but Sberbank has said it will not avail itself of them this year.
The head of the bank's finance department, Alexei Morozov, said provisions would only start to clear at the end of 2010, and were likely to rise until then.
Sberbank has now made provisions for bad loans exceeding 7 percent of its portfolio, while 3 percent have already gone sour, Gref said.
"The rate of NPL growth is slowing. But we can't say for now whether it is a trend or whether there will be a spike."
Central bank chief Ignatyev said the chances of the country facing a second wave of banking crisis were "negligible". ($1=31.20 Rouble) (Reporting by Dmitry Sergeyev and Oksana Kobzeva)