E. Egorov / Vedomosti

The Central Bank's Board of Directors announced on Friday that the International Financial Club (IFC), controlled by businessman Mikhail Prokhorov (47.45%), will become the bank's sanatorium for the St. Petersburg bank Tavrichesky. The regulator allocated the DIA to save the bank, and it will allocate 28 billion rubles to the sanatorium for a period of 10 years. IFC will gain control of the bank and will merge it by 2022.

Among the candidates for the role of the sanatorium in the last three months, the Central Bank and the DIA considered Bank of Moscow, Bank Saint Petersburg, Russian Capital, Moscow Industrial Bank and Baltinvestbank (submitted an application jointly with the IFC), Vedomosti sources said. The Central Bank chose the IFC, as it offered "the most favorable financial conditions for the sanatorium."

The bank's rehabilitation took longer than usual - the regulator was confused by the amount that potential rehabilitation companies were asking for: a sum of 28-35 billion rubles was discussed. However, the bank had large clients from among energy companies, in particular Lenenergo and MRSK Severo-Zapada, which accounted for 80% of the funds raised from legal entities.

Now the companies will have to wait a long time for their deposits to be returned. The structures of Lenenergo and MRSK Severo-Zapad had approximately 20 billion rubles deposited in Tavrichesky, according to comments from the Central Bank press service, the companies will partially re-register them "into subordinated deposits for a total of 12.7 billion rubles for a period of 20 years."

"The optimal solution for the company would be a 100% return of funds deposited in Tavrichesky Bank, but in real economic conditions the decision on Tavrichesky Bank can be assessed as the most positive result," says a representative of Lenenergo. According to him, the company will be able to return 25% of its funds in the short term - about 5 billion rubles. The state procurement website contains information that on March 3 Lenenergo announced six auctions for the provision of credit lines - a total of 4.5 billion rubles at an initial rate of 19.95%.

Tavrichesky will fully restore service to its clients, including timely settlements and payments, the Central Bank promises.

Liquidity problems at Tavrichesky became known at the end of December 2014 – the bank’s salary clients, Lenenergo employees, were barely able to receive their salaries. After that, the bank began having problems issuing deposits. Last week, an employee responded to a Vedomosti inquiry in the feedback form on the bank’s website that the bank was not issuing deposits; other questions remained unanswered. It was not possible to contact a bank representative on Friday. The Central Bank and the IFC did not respond to Vedomosti’s inquiry. A representative of the IFC’s main shareholder, Mikhail Prokhorov, declined to comment on the question of whether Prokhorov was ready to support Tavrichesky with his own funds if necessary.

"The allocated funds will be enough to resume the activities of Tavrichesky," says Standard & Poor's analyst Roman Rybalkin. But he admits that the financial recovery plan may change and the bank may need additional financing in a few years.

“We do not know the rate at which Lenenergo and MRSK Severo-Zapada will place subordinated deposits, so given the 20-year term of the deposits, it is difficult to assess the real scale of losses,” says Rybalkin, but does not rule out the early return of part of the subordinated deposits if the financial recovery process is successful.

Lenenergo will wait for deposits from Tavrichesky Bank for 20 years