Sberbank found a manager for VBI in an Austrian bank

Sberbank is preparing to replace the head of Volksbank International (VBI), which was recently acquired from an Austrian banking group. Sberbank's main candidate for the post of chairman of the board of VBI was an employee of another Austrian bank, Aris Bogdaneris, who now holds the position of member of the board of Raiffeisenbank International.

A source close to Sberbank told Kommersant that the Eastern European subsidiary of Sberbank Volksbank International may have a new chairman of the board in the near future. According to him, Sberbank has already 99% decided on the new head of VBI. “The main candidate for this post is Aris Bogdaneris, who currently works at the Austrian Raiffeisenbank International (RBI), where he serves as a member of the board and is responsible for the development of retail business within the Raiffeisen banks,” says Kommersant’s interlocutor.

Aris Bogdaneris was born in 1963. He started his career as an analyst at Citycorp. From 1992 to 1995 he worked at ABN AMRO, from 1995 to 2004 at General Electric, where from 2003 to 2004 he served as Chairman of the Board of GE's subsidiary bank in Hungary, Budapest Bank. From 2004 to the present, Aris Bogdaneris has been a member of the RBI board, where he oversees the development of the group's retail business.

Sberbank closed the deal to acquire VBI from the Austrian banking group Oesterreichische Volksbanken AG (OVAG) on February 15. The transaction amount was €505 million. On the part of Sberbank, the integration of the European asset is supervised by board member Sergei Gorkov.

Will there be any replacement managers? I don’t rule out that they will, but we are going to rely on the VBI team that we have today

— German Gref, head of Sberbank, February 15

Speaking at a press conference dedicated to the closing of the deal, Sberbank President German Gref said that Sberbank does not intend to change the team of the acquired bank in the near future, although individual changes are, of course, possible. At the same time, Mr. Gref refused to specify who will head the acquired bank, recommending waiting for the official appointment. In the meantime, the position of Chairman of the Board is occupied by Friedhelm Boschert, who led VBI before the deal. On Friday, Sberbank refused to comment on the possible appointment of Aris Bogdaneris to the position of Chairman of the Board of VBI. The RBI press service said: “These are rumors and nonsense. The contract with Mr. Bogdaneris, as with all other members of the RBI board of directors, was extended in 2011 until the end of 2015.” However, this does not prevent Mr. Bogdaneris from negotiating with Sberbank. A Kommersant source at Sberbank reported that the bank is now considering several candidates for the position of chairman of the board of VBI, but one of the candidates, a native of an Austrian bank, is preferred. A Kommersant source close to the RBI also knows about Sberbank’s negotiations with Aris Bogdaneris.

Mr. Bogdaneris's former colleagues at GE, who asked not to be named, said he has extensive banking experience. In particular, at Budapest Bank he was responsible for the implementation of the Six Sigma system, which is an analogue of the Sberbank production system (process management system). According to German Gref, it is with the help of its technologies that Sberbank intends to conquer the European market. “As a top manager at GE, Aris Bogdaneris has proven himself excellent in all his positions,” notes Kommersant’s interlocutor. “After leaving GE, he made a career within RBI, which has extensive experience in the markets of Central and Eastern Europe, which is undoubtedly , will be useful to Sberbank in the development of VBI." Russian experts also consider Sberbank’s personnel choice to be successful. “The Austrian authorities are conservative and want the head of the bank to be a local person who has been working in the European banking market for a long time. And Mr. Bogdaneris is the right hand of RBI Chairman Herbert Stepic. He knows the retail business and the preferences of Europeans regarding banking services well. In addition, “Aris Bogdaneris has management experience in Budapest Bank, a large bank by European standards,” explains Artur Shamilov, partner at the recruiting agency Tor Contact.

Ksenia Dementieva, Tamila Jojua

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