Mission accomplished

UniCredit Group bought out the share of the last shareholder of the bank with license number one

The Italian banking group UniCredit has almost completed the consolidation of shares in the International Moscow Bank (IMB). Yesterday, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced the sale of its stake in IMB to a subsidiary of UniCredit - the Austria Creditanstalt bank. It is on the balance sheet of this structure that the Italians consolidate IMB shares. The final completion of the transaction requires regulatory approval, after which UniCredit will become the sole owner of IMB shares.

IMB is the first commercial bank with foreign participation, created in Russia back in 1989; five foreign banks and three then Soviet banks became its shareholders. The bank has general license number one. Today IMB is a universal bank with 48 branches, eight regional branches and 11 representative offices in Russia. IMB ranks 8th in the country in terms of assets (7.8 billion euros as of March 31). The bank employs 2,100 people and services 280 thousand clients. The UniCredit Group is one of the largest financial groups in Europe with a market capitalization of approximately 70 billion euros. It is represented in 20 countries and serves 35 million customers. In the summer of 2005, UniCredit acquired the German HypoVereinsbank, which in turn controlled the Austria Creditanstalt bank, for 15 billion euros. It was through Austria Creditanstalt that the German bank owned at that time 52.88% of Russian IMB. After UniCredit’s deal with HypoVereinsbank, the Italian group also gained control over IMB. Other IMB shareholders were the Finnish group Nordea (26.44%), a subsidiary of the Russian VTB - BCEN-Eurobank (15.88%) and the EBRD, which owned 4.81% of voting shares (taking into account preferred shares, the EBRD controlled 10% of the charter IMB capital). After several additional issues, during which the EBRD acquired only preference shares, its voting share was reduced to 2.79%.

At the beginning of 2006, the management of the Finnish Nordea officially announced that it did not plan to be a portfolio investor in IMB, and in the summer of the same year it sold its stake to HypoVereinsbank for $395 million. At the end of 2006 - early 2007, BCEN-Eurobank sold its stake in IMB Austria Creditanstalt bank. In January 2007, the remaining shares of IMB, already owned by HypoVereinsbank, were sold to him. Now Austria Creditanstalt has bought the last share from the EBRD.

Yesterday, the EBRD management announced that it had sold its stake in IMB to Austria Creditanstalt Bank for $230 million. The share in IMB capital, which consisted of ordinary voting shares, was sold in accordance with a previously concluded option to sell shares. The preferred shares were sold as part of an ordinary transaction. “Subject to the approval of the transaction by the regulatory authorities of both countries, Austria Creditanstalt Bank will become the owner of a 100 percent stake in IMB,” IMB noted.

“The EBRD believes that its mission as an IMB shareholder has been fulfilled,” said EBRD Banking Director Kurt Geiger. “Our goal, as in all other banks where we are present, was to help increase the bank’s capitalization and improve corporate governance. These goals have been fully achieved." In turn, Chairman of the Board of IMB Yuri Tverskoy said: “The presence of the EBRD was an important factor for the growth and stability of the bank. We are grateful to the EBRD for their attitude towards our bank and the Russian banking market.”

And the head of the department for Central and Eastern Europe of the UniCredit group, Erich Hampel, indicated: “The acquisition of the stake in IMB, currently owned by the EBRD, is the next step in the implementation of our growth strategy in Russia. In the future, as we have already said, we will continue development through organic growth and by the end of 2008 we will increase the IMB banking network to 120 points of sale.” The bank is also facing other changes - a month ago its shareholders decided to rename it UniCredit.

Elena KHUTORNYKH