A court has declared the Russian unit of Mubariz Mansimov-controlled Turkish tanker owner Palmali Shipping bankrupt.
A fleet sale could now follow after the decision by the commercial court of the Rostov region, the Kommersant daily reported.
The newspaper said the arbitration court opted to satisfy the claims of creditors of the Rostov-based subsidiary, Palmali LLC.
Of the total debt of RUB 14bn ($209.65m), Russia's Sberbank is owed RUB 13bn.
Almost all the company's 58-strong fleet is pledged to the bank, the report said.
The Russian company had been hoping to avoid bankruptcy and had come up with a financial recovery plan, the report said.
But at a meeting of creditors in September, Sberbank voted to open bankruptcy proceedings.
The CEO of Palmali LLC, Alexei Mikhelev, told Kommersant that he would not comment on the matter.
The report cited brokerage Kalinka Shipping's CEO Yevgeny Dolgikh as saying ship sales at auction will be difficult.
“These are oil vessels of the river-sea class. Now it is illiquid property,” he said.
Sberbank is not commenting on its plans for the vessels.
Court documents cited previously showed that in 2013 and 2014, Sberbank opened three credit lines for Palmali.
The first involved $56.5m intended to refinance vessels and repay a loan to Alfa-Bank, while the second was for $104m to buy 10 vessels.
The other loan of $60.3m was for the acquisition of another five ships.
Palmali owes $184.2m on these loans, the RBC website reported. There was also another loan of $34m made in March 2014.
At the end of 2017, Sberbank demanded that the remaining $26.6m of this be repaid.
The bank has mortgages on 46 Palmali vessels and five properties, court documents showed.
The Russian unit is listed by Clarksons as owning four small tankers, while the wider group operates more than 200 ships, including MPPs and chartered-in tonnage.
