Industry Financial services Website www.abr.ru Founded 1990 | Products Financial services Headquarters Saint Petersburg, Russia | |
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Type Public company joint stock company Key people Dmitri Lebedev, CEO
Yury Kovalchuk, Board chairman Subsidiaries JSC Zest, LLC Perevedenovskiy | ||
The Rossiya Bank (Bank Rossiya, in Russian: Акционерный коммерческий банк Россия, АКБ Россия) is a Russian joint stock bank founded on June 27, 1990. The company's headquarters are based in St. Petersburg.
Contents
Russia sanctioned rossiya bank to limit operations to domestic market
History
In 1990, the CPSU committee of the Leningrad Oblast became its largest shareholder (48.4%), but after the coup attempt in August 1991 the bank's activity was frozen as it was CPSU-related.
In December 1991 its activity was resumed, as the shares had been redeemed by some member ventures of the Leningrad Association of Joint Ventures, shares of which were held by Vladimir Yakunin, Yuriy Kovalchuk, Mikhail Markov, Viktor Myachin, Andrei Fursenko, Sergey Fursenko, Yury Nikolayev. From 1998 to 2000 OCG Organized Crime Gang Tambov Gang leaders Gennady Petrov and Sergei Kuzmin each owned 2.2% of bank shares, and they were represented at meetings by Andrei Shumkov, who sat on the Bank's board of directors from 1998 to 2000 (as the Vedomosti business newspaper reported). In 1998 and 1999, 14.2% of Rossia's stock belonged to the St Petersburg firms Ergen, Forward Ltd and Fuel Investment Company (TIK), all associated with Mr Shumkov. Mr Shumkov and Mr Kuzmin owned Ergen, while BKhM and Finance Petroleum Company, both affiliated with Mr Kuzmin and Mr Petrov, were TIK co-owners.
As of January 1, 2005, its major shareholders were Yuriy Kovalchuk with 37.6%, Nikolay Shamalov with 9.7%, Dmitry Gorelov with 9.7% and the Severstal group with 8.8%.
As of 2006, its major shareholders were Yuriy Kovalchuk (30.4%), Dmitry Gorelov (12.58%), Nikolay Shamalov (12.58%), JSC Transoil CIS (9.54%), JSC Severstal Group (7.15%), JSC Accept (3.93%) – owned by grandson of Vladimir Putin's uncle Michael Shelomov, JSC Relax (3.65%), "Assistance to Business Initiatives" Non-Commercial Enterprise (3.08%), Russian Federal Property Fund (2.93%).
On December 28, 2006, Fitch Ratings assigned the bank negative ratings (Long Term issuer Default rating B-, Short Term rating B, National Long Term rating BB- (RUS) ) as a subsidiary of the bank, ABRos Investment Company, had signed a non-transparent deal aiming to buy a considerable share of the Ren TV Media Holding (see below).
Sanctions
On March 20, 2014, the United States Government Office of Foreign Assets Control added Rossiya Bank to the Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN) as part of sanctions taken in response to the 2014 Crimean crisis, placing restrictions on US trade with the bank. In response Vladimir Putin announced that he would open a ruble-only account with Bank Rossiya and would make it the primary bank in the newly annexed Crimea as well as giving the right to service payments on Russia's $36 billion wholesale electricity market – which gave the bank $112 million annually from commission charges alone.
Management
The head of its board of directors were, in order, Vladimir Kolovay and Andrei Katkov. The current head of the board of directors is Yury Kovalchuk, who has held this position since 2004.
Director General and Head of the Management Committee:
On September 24, 2004, Viktor Myachin resigned from the Director General position and Mikhail Klishin, who had been the First Deputy Director General and held a 0.197% share, was appointed acting Director General.
On December 10, 2004, Mikhail Klishin was appointed Director General, as the Central Bank of the Russian Federation had agreed to this decision.
On April 3, 2006, the board of directors appointed Dmitry Lebedev Director General and Head of the Management Committee. Mikhail Klishin (holder of a 0.159% share) was appointed First Deputy Director General. The Management Committee appointed on that day: Dmitry Lebedev, Oleg Anufriev, Alexander Germanov, Konstantin Gorbachyov, Faniya Kabalina, Mikhail Klishin, Galina Lebedeva, Alexander Markin, Oleg Filatov.
On December 26, 2006, the board of directors of the Bank elected its new Management Committee consisting of Dmitry Lebedev (Head, Director General), Alexander Germanov, Konstantin Gorbachyov, Faniya Kabalina, Mikhail Klishin, Alexander Markin and Boris Tikhonenko.
Subsidiaries
As of 2005, the bank is a shareholder of the following companies (see [3]):
In January 2005 it turned out that ABRos, a subsidiary of the bank, and Accept, one of its shareholders, held a 49.97% share and a 13.5% share of the insurance group SOGAZ Ltd., respectively [6], after a 49.979% share of the SOGAZ group had been sold by the Russian gas giant Gazprom to an unnamed purchaser for 1.69 billion rubles on July 26, 2004 [7], and in August 2004 Gazprom had sold 26% more of SOGAZ for 879.3 million rubles. [8]
On November 2005 ABRos Investment Company (chairman of the board of Directors since September 11, 2006: Lyubov Sovershaeva) purchased a 37% share of the Petersburg TV and Radio Company. Also it owns a considerable share of the Media Holding Ren TV (as of December 2006, [9]). On December 18, 2006 Lyubov Sovershaeva also became the chairman of the board of Directors of the Ren TV Media Holding (replacing Alexey Germanovich, a Severstal Group representative).