Translated material
Buying a Benelux class
Suleiman Kerimov invested in the Dutch-Belgian banking group Fortis
Businessman Suleiman Kerimov continues to buy shares of the world's leading banks. He is already a shareholder in Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC. The Russian billionaire's latest acquisition is an investment of 400 million euros in the securities of the Belgian-Dutch banking group Fortis. The Wall Street Journal reported this yesterday. Prior to this transaction, Mr. Kerimov already owned 2% of Fortis shares. And Fortis President Maurice Lippens called him “one of the most respected business people in Russia.”The buyer was the Millenium Group company, the main shareholder of which is Mr. Kerimov. Fortis shares were purchased during an additional issue in the amount of $1.5 billion. The bank decided to increase capital by issuing new shares due to difficulties arising in connection with the credit crisis in the United States and Europe. In addition, Fortis became a participant in the consortium to acquire the Dutch bank ABN Amro, which also negatively affected its financial capabilities. The Fortis Group offers banking and insurance services on the international market in both the retail and corporate sectors. It is one of the twenty largest financial institutions in Europe and is a leader in providing services in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Mr. Kerimov has recently been actively selling off his Russian assets, investing in foreign securities. Thus, until recently, the businessman was the largest private shareholder of Sberbank, he owned 6% of the capital of the credit organization. He sold this stake (at the beginning of the year it was valued at $5.4 billion), in addition, he left the shareholders of Gazprom, where he owned 4.5% of the shares (these securities were valued at $15.37 billion). In the spring of this year, Mr. Kerimov sold the largest cable television network, National Telecommunications, to Yuri Kovalchuk’s holding National Media Group, and also left the shareholders of the Polymetal company (market participants valued his 68 percent stake at more than $2 billion. ). Last fall, Mr. Kerimov sold Metronom AG (operator of the Mercado supermarket chain) for $200 million.
It is possible that the current purchase of Fortis shares will not be the last investment of the Russian businessman in Western assets. Global financial institutions are now experiencing serious difficulties, the value of their shares has decreased by tens of percent over the year. Obviously, these assets are now cheap and therefore attractive for investment.