Companies from the UAE, behind which are “alpha groups”, will buy the Russian business Unicredit-Kommersant

Three companies from the UAE offered the Italian treasury to purchase Russian assets of the Unicredit group with a 60 percent discount from market value. This was reported by Reuters with reference to a document sent to the Ministry of Finance of Italy. The transaction should be completed within six to eight months.

According to the three sources of Kommersant, the interests of the Alfa-Group consortium, which includes A1, can stand behind this operation. According to one of the interlocutors of the publication, "one of the two Arab funds is associated with this company." Such a scheme is necessary due to the fact that Alfa-Bank is under EU sanctions.

According to the plan, the ASAS Capital and Mada Capital funds based in Dubai will create a specialized company and unite with the Investa investment company, which is already working in Russia. The latter in 2022 was founded by the ex-head of the A1 Andrei Elinson-the company runs assets worth more than $ 1 billion and in 2024 acquired the Russian PPF Czech insurance business.

Unicredit Bank remains a profitable asset for the Italian group - according to the results of 2024, its profit amounted to 52.1 billion rubles, and 25.3 billion rubles for the first quarter of 2025. The bank’s assets on April 1 reached 837.2 billion rubles, which allows it to occupy 19th place in the Interfax-100 rating. To sell the assets of Western companies in Russia, a presidential decree and a resolution of the Central Bank, including a mandatory discount of at least 60% and the payment of a 35 percent contribution to the budget are required.

In November 2024, the Central Bank left the list of 13 systemically significant credit organizations that control 79% of the assets of the Russian banking sector, preserving the Unicredit and Raiffeisenbank in it, despite the requirements of the European Central Bank to close their Russian business and the statements of banks themselves about the strategy of cunning operations in the country. The list also includes Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, Alfa-Bank, Soskombank, ICD, FC Opening, T-Bank, Rosbank, Promsvyazbank and Rosselkhozbank.