Old acquaintances

Russian mortgage bank revealed its owners - MIAN and Sobinbank

Russian Mortgage Bank announced a change of shareholders. The controlling stake - 50.61% - now belongs to the Technopolis-Project holding, which includes the MIAN group of companies, and Sobinbank owns 49.39% of the shares. Market participants, however, believe that these structures were previously the owners of the Russian Mortgage Bank, it’s just that now it was decided to officially declare this.

The small Russian Mortgage Bank (formerly the Siberian Peasant Bank) began to engage in mortgages since the beginning of 2005. During this time, he managed to issue mortgage loans for $45 million (for comparison: the City Mortgage Bank had $110 million). However, by the end of the year, as the head of the bank, Alexey Guryanov, told Vremya Novostey, the portfolio of mortgage loans will be increased to $120 million. “With the appearance of Sobinbank and MIAN among our shareholders, our capital will be increased - first by 450 million rubles, - he says. “By the end of the year, Russian Mortgage’s own funds will amount to 1.7 billion rubles, which will allow us to enter the top 100 Russian credit institutions in terms of equity capital.” According to Mr. Guryanov, the emergence of new owners is unlikely to affect the bank’s cooperation with realtors. “The fact that the controlling stake belongs to MIAN, one of the largest players in the real estate market, will not in any way affect our cooperation with other companies,” he asserts. “We work with 115 realtors and will continue to work.”

He did not name the amount of the transaction; according to the newspaper, the bank was sold at par, that is, for the size of its authorized capital. Currently, credit institutions on the market are sold at a ratio of 2.5--3.5 to their authorized capital. They buy a credit institution for an amount equal to one capital only in the case when there is practically no business in it and the new owner only needs a banking license. However, the Russian Mortgage Bank is engaged in real operations. Therefore, it is obvious that this transaction was not of a market nature. “Since the transaction was carried out at par, this suggests that there is simply a restructuring of the business among the existing owners,” believes Nikolai Shitov, president of the City Mortgage Bank. “In my opinion, nothing changes for the bank in the new configuration.”

In February of this year, in an interview, Mr. Guryanov stated that the bank has “very serious shareholders.” According to him, they acquired the Siberian Peasant Bank "to provide the easiest and fastest way to create their own mortgage bank." Even in winter, several little-known companies were listed as shareholders of the bank, but then Mr. Guryanov said that this was a temporary phenomenon and in a couple of months the real owners would be revealed. Then he said that “the bank is owned by two large companies, one of them operates in the real estate market, the other is known in the financial market.” Yesterday, Mr. Guryanov did not confirm that it was Sobin and MIAN who previously owned the bank, saying only that he had “known his new shareholders for a long time.”

Natalia ROMANOVA