Speaking at a conference dedicated to the restructuring of the banking system, Sukhov explained that the Central Bank wants ''legislation forcing information about who owns the bank, who controls it and who is responsible for what is going on in it to be free and available''.
Admittedly, the fact that Alfa-Bank formally belongs to Alfa Bank Holding Ltd., which is registered in the British Virgin Isles, and that MDM-Bank is owned by a group of offshore firms from Kalmykia, does not mean that no one in the Central Bank knows that the names of the real owners of those banking empires are Mikhail Fridman and Andrei Melnichenko.
Besides, judging from the experience of several major Russian corporations, even if a company is registered in an offshore zone, it is no big problem to find out the names of the real owners. For instance, nobody forces YUKOS to re-register its Gibraltar-based MENATEP group in Russia.
On the other hand, the new initiative of the Central Bank has proved very convenient for certain individuals. In the campaign against capital inflating declared by the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank Andrei Kozlov half a year ago, many observers perceived an unambiguous allusion to the International Industrial Bank, controlled by Kremlin-insider Sergei Pugachev.
The latest initiative of the Central Bank, however, seems to imply the above-mentioned MDM-Bank and Alfa-Bank. Especially since the corporations with which those banks cooperate (the Tyumen Oil Company and Sibneft, respectively), intend to take part in the bid for the sale of the government’s share in Slavneft, on which Pugachev and his allies from Rosneft and Gazprom have their designs.
In this regard, it is worth noting that both Alfa Bank and the MDM Financial Group quite recently attracted huge loans through the issuing of Eurobonds. Therefore, even if the Central Bank’s initiative announced by Mikhail Sukhov never becomes law, the potential buyers of their respective Eurobonds may well become a little wary.
If that indeed is the case, then there is no guarantee that Alfa-Bank and MDM-Bank will not be left to sort out the mini-crisis in their Eurobonds sale caused by the CB’s announcement instead of using the $175 million and $125 million the two banks hope to raise respectively in order to finance the potential participants of the Slavneft bid.
Speaking at the conference on Monday, Mikhail Sukhov confirmed that the Central Bank and the government were working on draft legislation banning offshore firms from holding more than 10 per cent of the capital in Russian banks, but would not say when it might go to the parliament. This in turn gave rise to speculation that the announcement was made exactly for the purpose of undermining Alfa and MDM’s chances of winning the Slavneft bid.
10 ДЕКАБРЯ 14:41
