Sberbank revealed its shareholder

Nafta-Moscow turned out to be the owner of 5.3% of the shares of the state bank

Minority shareholders of Sberbank began to disclose their shares. Last Friday, the bank officially announced that Nafta-Moscow, controlled by State Duma deputy Suleiman Kerimov, increased its stake in Sberbank ordinary shares from 4.9% to more than 5.3%. Until now, the only shareholder of the bank that disclosed its share in its capital was the Central Bank.

Sberbank is the only blue chip on the Russian stock market representing the banking sector. The Central Bank owns 63.76% of its ordinary shares; foreign investors, as its president Andrei Kazmin said at a meeting of bank shareholders in June, control more than 18%. Residents also own large stakes. However, the shares of minority shareholders in the capital of Sberbank are unknown to the market.

Nafta-Moscow specializes in managing Mr. Kerimov’s investment projects, including in real estate and the banking sector. Previously, the company, together with Basic Element, participated in the struggle for the assets of entrepreneur Andrei Andreev, in particular for Avtobank, Ingosstrakh-Soyuz Bank, Ingosstrakh and the NOSTA metallurgical plant. This year, the company announced its intention to develop Mosstroyekonombank, which it controls, and also became a participant in the additional issue of shares of BIN Bank (its share in the bank will be 25%).

Representatives of Nafta-Moscow did not say on Friday when and how the company became a shareholder of Sber. “It looks a lot like a targeted market buy,” says one investment analyst. Since last year, Sberbank share quotes on the MICEX have doubled, reaching a historical high in June. Taking into account the current capitalization of Sberbank, the block of ordinary shares of Nafta is worth approximately $740 billion. However, the seller of the shares could also be one of the Russian shareholders of Sberbank: “The bank has a number of investors, including those related to management,” claims Vremya Novostei source familiar with the situation at Sberbank.

A member of the supervisory board of Sberbank, Sergei Generalov (head of the Industrial Investors group), told Vremya Novostey that he is aware of the emergence of a new major shareholder of the bank. Moreover, according to him, Nafta-Moscow bought the stake before the June annual meeting of Sber shareholders, so it “had the opportunity to appoint its representative to the supervisory board,” so it is unlikely to initiate an extraordinary meeting of shareholders. As a result of the meeting, as you know, the Sber board included three representatives from minority shareholders - in addition to Mr. Generalov, these are the honorary chairman of the board of directors of the United Financial Group, Boris Fedorov, and the main owner of the investment company Sovlink, Dmitry Pyatkin. Moreover, this year Mr. Pyatkin joined the board of Sberbank for the first time.

Contact Messrs. Pyatkin and Fedorov did not succeed over the weekend. And Mr. Generalov believes that if the new shareholder wishes to take part in the management of Sberbank, he is unlikely to do so before the fall. However, it is unlikely that Nafta-Moscow can influence the strategy of the state bank. According to Alfa Bank analyst Natalia Orlova, “Sberbank’s policy is completely determined by the state, so Nafta-Moscow will be a neutral shareholder for it.”

Yuri VERETENNIKOV, Denis REBROV, Nikolai GORELOV