The Russian Orthodox Church may become the mistress of Ergobank

The Russian Orthodox Church began negotiations on the purchase of an Ergobank control package - a financial and credit institution, among whose customers are the structures in one way or another related to the church. These are dioceses and subordinate institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church. As you know, the church is legally exempted from paying taxes and the need to provide financial statements. Among the clients of Ergobank are such large structures as the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and Danilov Monastery. The bank served not only current dioceses, but also accumulated the donations of parishioners. In total, the bank has 61 clients of this kind.

The agency of RBC became known about the purchase of Ergobank from two sources close to both the bank itself and to the Russian Orthodox Church.

According to the first source, "buying a package will allow the bank to solve the problem of lack of liquidity." A source from the church said that the Russian Orthodox Church, buying a bank, expects to save the funds in dioceses open in it. “It is possible that if the parties agree on a transaction, the bank will buy a person or church affected by the Russian Orthodox Church to look for sponsors who would give money for a direct purchase,” said the church interlocutor of RBC.

He clarified that the Russian Orthodox Church agreed to open accounts in Ergobank because of one of his shareholders - Valery Meshalkin, who owns 19.87% of the shares. Meshalkin, according to the interlocutor of the agency, is "a church man, an Orthodox businessman who helped the temples a lot." This was considered a guarantee that nothing would happen to the bank.

Valery Meshalkin is the owner of the Energomashkapital construction and installation company, a member of the Board of Trinity of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and the Moscow Theological Academy, a member of the Maria charitable society, author of the book “influence the Holy Mount Athos on the monastic traditions of Eastern Europe”.

The problems of Ergobank became widely known at the very end of December 2015. The bank then stopped issuing deposits and was talking about the recall of the license or merging with another bank. In one of the bank offices, journalists were informed that his customers can still withdraw money from their accounts, but not more than 50 thousand rubles in one hand.

At banking forums, customers of a credit institution also complained about the inability to withdraw deposits and replenish the current ones. In addition, from the data of the Moscow exchange it follows that on December 22, the bank did not fulfill the bonds for bonds for 904 million rubles.

Ergobank was founded in Moscow in 1994 with capital at 6.5 billion rubles. In the banking system of Russia, it is included in the fourth hundred. The main activity of Ergobank is the lending of the population. In recent years, the bank has been creating a sales and lending network for corporate customers.

The owners of the bank, according to the Interfax agency, are Vyacheslav Barmin (23.5%of the bank’s shares), Vladimir Gasparov (23.5%), Vasily Saushkin (20.5%), Valery Meshkalin (directly - 5.4%, about 14%through the company Dmitrovskaya Corporation) and other individuals.