KMB Bank Being Put Up for Sale
// Foreigners in Russia
Yesterday it was learned of a planned sale of a controlling block of shares in AMB Bank. Among prospective buyers are large banks in Germany, France, and Italy Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, and Intesa. The last of these officially confirmed to Kommersant yesterday that it was conducting such negotiations.
According to Kommersant's information, as of October 1, 2004, KMB Bank ranked 152nd among Russian banks in amount of equity capital (0.89 billion rubles) and 75th in assets (9.27 billion rubles). The bank's shareholders are EBRR (36.77%), the Soros Foundation (36.78%), the German investment company DEG (18.36%), and Stichting Triodos-Doen, a structure of the Dutch Triodos Bank (8.09%).
The Interfax news agency, citing an “informed source close to the deal”, reported yesterday on the forthcoming sale of a controlling block of shares in KMB Bank. It named Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, and Intesa as probable buyers. No one at KMB Bank itself could comment on this information yesterday. EBRR, Paribas, and Deutsche Bank refused to either confirm or deny this information yesterday.
However, a source close to one of KMB Bank's shareholders confirmed to Kommersant that a deal was being prepared. In his words, information about it might become available as early as next week. He named Renaissance Capital as the organizer of the deal. And yesterday, Aleksandr Shokhin, the chairman of the supervisory board of the Renaissance Capital group of companies, confirmed to Kommersant that the company he heads was the organizer of the deal to sell the shares in KMB Bank. He refused to give any details.
At the same time, an Intesa representative told Kommersant yesterday that the bank did indeed want to penetrate the Russian market and was conducting negotiations to buy shares in KMB Bank. Nevertheless, it is quite likely that each of the banks named above is a contender for the purchase of KMB Bank. After all, KMB Bank is one of the most suitable Russian banks for sale to foreign investors. It is fairly transparent – all of its founders are representatives of Western capital. We note that Deltabank, a branch bank of the American company Delta Private Equity, was recently sold in a similar manner to another American company, General Electric Consumer Finance.
In addition, KMB Bank has a license to work with private individuals, whereas the Russian branches of Intesa and BNP Paribas currently do not have such a license. By acquiring KMB Bank, they will be able to start attracting funds and granting loans to Russian citizens. We note that at the present time the fate of BNP Paribas' deal to buy Russky Standart Bank is still undecided. But even if it ultimately goes ahead, there won't be any competition between KMB Bank and Russky Standart, since the latter's main line of activity is retail lending.
Kommersant will be following the development of events.
Daniil Zhelobanov, Mariya Khanyutina, Kirill Yacheistov
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 20, 2005
|
