| The sale of Guta Bank to the state-owned VTB brought the banking system out of the crisis, but slowed down its development The purchase of Guta Bank by the state-owned Vneshtorgbank (VTB) became one of the key anti-crisis decisions of the government and the Central Bank in July. It was adopted in a hurry, when depositors of Guta itself and the systemically important Alfa Bank and Bank of Moscow were panicking on the streets of Russian cities. It was necessary for Guta to start working urgently and resume payments. And its sale to the state bank, headed by Andrei Kostin, helped solve the problem. However, this deal secured Russia's status as a country of prosperous state banks and a weak private banking business, ready to be absorbed by foreign capital.
Guta Bank, as you know, stopped payments on July 6, and its fate was decided a day later at an emergency meeting with the participation of government officials, the Central Bank and a number of bankers. Theoretically, there were several options for saving the troubled bank. The Bank of Russia, for example, could issue a stabilization loan to Guta. But at the beginning of this year, subordinate heads of the Central Bank Sergei Ignatiev learned that they could go to prison for this: the Zamoskvoretsky court sentenced to a suspended sentence the former deputy head of the Moscow State Technical University of the Central Bank, Alexander Alekseev, who formally approved the provision of a stabilization loan to SBS-Agro Bank in 1998.
One could try to create an anti-crisis pool of the largest banks, ready to save Guta for the common good. But for such combinations, even if the authorities showed interest in them, there was practically no time. It is possible that there was no desire: after all, the idea of selling Guta Bank to VTB lay on the surface, and the state bank itself never hid that it was interested in some industrial enterprises that were serviced by Guta Bank. Moreover, before the crisis, the management of both banks discussed the possibility of lending to the Guta group by Vneshtorgbank secured by the shares of these enterprises. However, negotiations on this ended in nothing.
As a result, VTB bought Guta Bank for 1 million rubles. (approximately $34 thousand), and the Central Bank placed deposits with VTB for $700 million at the LIBOR rate - officially for settlements with clients of the acquired bank. A few days after this, Mr. Kostin announced: “There is an understanding that the industrial assets (of the Guta group - Ed. ) will be transferred to Vneshtorgbank for servicing.”
Now Guta Bank is far from being such a large organization as before: before the crisis it had 6.5 billion rubles. private deposits are now half as much (about 3.1 billion rubles), its assets in the third quarter decreased by more than 15% (to 24.8 billion rubles). In the same third quarter, VTB assets grew by 36%, to 351.6 billion rubles, and private deposits by 68%, to 45.1 billion rubles.
The former head of the board of directors and shareholder of Guta Bank, Alexander Petrov, is now one of three members of the board of Guta with the rank of first deputy chairman of the board, and the own banking business of Guta Bank shareholders has moved to the tiny bank Tver. And in the third quarter, VTB announced the purchase of shares in St. Petersburg Promstroybank.
This whole story has revealed a serious problem in the banking system: Russia’s financial authorities are poorly prepared to deal with crises and are able to smooth out instability in the market mainly through the hands of state banks (by the way, the main source of refinancing for private banks in the summer were Sberbank and VTB). This means that the government is forced to make decisions that contradict its own policy of denationalizing the banking system, encouraging competition in the market and the gradual privatization of state-owned banks. Yuri VERETENNIKOV |
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