rossiya bank
gep was the 43rd largest bank by equity compared to rossiya’s rankings of 51st .
gazprom officials said they considered the swap ratio fair and explained that auditors estimated bank rossiya share split by calculating assets of the larger rossiya group and not just the bank .
bank rossiya until recently had links to gazprombank, as the asset management company that managed gazfond was partly owned by an insurance company, sogaz, owned by bank rossiya .
ofac has identified and added cjsc abr management to the sdn list for acting for or on behalf of bank rossiya (previously placed on the sdn list in march 2014). bank rossiya managers founded abr management to strategically manage the banking group’s assets. as the trustee under a trust agreement with certain bank rossiya shareholders, abr management has the power to exercise voting rights for a majority of bank rossiya shares, including rights to propose candidates for bank rossiya management positions .
further, additional “also known as” names have been added to the description for bank rossiya: a. k. a. ab rossiya, oao; f. k. a. aktsionerny bank russian federation; and a. k. a. otkrytoe aaktsionernoe obshchestvo aaktsionerny bank rossiya .
is the personal bank for senior officials of the russian federation. bank rossiya’s shareholders include members of putin’s inner circle associated with the ozero
and not only that, bank rossiya itself has profited massively at the expense of russian taxpayers .
not content merely to manage media assets, bank rossiya began buying up media companies of its own .
sandalwood was not alone in winning big. bank rossiya would do an even bigger deal – one that transformed it into a major russian bank .
, a housing community in which they live. bank rossiya is also controlled by kovalchuk, designated today .
a woman walks past the head office of bank rossiya in st. petersburg credit: reuters / alexander demianchuk
is designated for acting for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, and materially assisting, sponsoring, or providing, financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, bank rossiya. bank rossiya managers founded abr management to strategically manage the banking group’s assets. as the trustee under a trust agreement with certain bank rossiya shareholders, abr management has the power to exercise voting rights for a majority of bank rossiya shares, including rights to propose candidates for bank rossiya management positions .
he also owns 3. 2% of bank rossiya. the st petersburg private bank has been described as putin’s “crony bank”. the us imposed sanctions on it after russia’s 2014 invasion of ukraine .
meanwhile, bank rossiya benefited from the merger. by the end of 2010, bank rossiya’s assets had more than doubled to us $ 8 billion and its equity had increased to us $ 660 million, while the deposits by corporate clients doubled as well. bank rossiya had become an important financial player in the russian gas industry .
arkady rotenberg, boris rotenberg, yuri kovalchuk and bank rossiya. in addition to being designated for providing material support to russian government officials, bank rossiya is also being designated for being controlled by designated inner circle member kovalchuk .
sandalwood, meanwhile, made a fortune on bank rossiya’s shares by simply buying and reselling them in two days. shareholders of bank rossiya, connected to putin since the 1990s, were also lucky by acquiring the valuable assets of a former gazprom bank without paying any cash .
in march of 2010, the board of directors of gep approved a merger with bank rossiya. the deal allowed bank rossiya to take over gep in exchange for newly issued shares of bank rossiya. no cash was included in the deal. but the deal turned out to be a very poor deal for taxpayers because the shares of bank rossiya, which are not openly traded, tended to change value in such a way that benefitted the private bank and its shareholders at the expense of the state .
cjsc abr management (“abr management”) is designated for acting for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, and materially assisting, sponsoring, or providing, financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, bank rossiya. bank rossiya managers founded abr management to strategically manage the banking group’s assets. as the trustee under a trust agreement with certain bank rossiya shareholders, abr management has the power to exercise voting rights for a majority of bank rossiya shares, including rights to propose candidates for bank rossiya management positions .
the st petersburg communist party founded rossiya bank in 1990. when the communist party was outlawed a year later, rossiya bank — with about $ 70 million of communist party funds — was taken over by associates of putin. in the early 1990’s, the tambov organized crime group controlled as much as 20% of rossiya bank shares. bank rossiya, in turn, held shares in ptk, the gas distributor run by the tambov gang, which had an exclusive contract to supply the city. directors of kinex — the st petersburg refinery which supplied the oil in the oil - for - food barter — owned 7% of rossiya bank shares. friends and associates of putin continue to own significant stakes in rossiya bank. sergei roldugin, a celebrated cellist and boyhood friend of putin, currently is a major shareholder. the panama papers recently implicated roldugin in money laundering. rossiya bank is referred to colloquially as putin’s bank. the us specifically sanctioned rossiya bank in 2014 in response to the russian invasion of crimea. in response to sanctions, rossiya bank received a huge influx of government business .
by plugging into the domestic electricity market, bank rossiya is putting itself beyond the reach of u. s. sanctions. u. s. officials said in march that bank rossiya would be
frozen out of the dollar .
“putin said, ‘bank rossiya, that’s it, ’ ” mr. milov later told the russian edition of forbes .
yuri kovalchuk is bank rossiya' s billionaire chairman as well as its largest shareholder. photograph: alexander zemlianichenko / ap
these assets are only part of a series of linked financial schemes revealed in the documents that revolve round bank rossiya .
a woman passes by the headquarters of russia' s rossiya bank in st. petersburg, april 4, 2016 .
the target the office in st. petersburg, russia, of bank rossiya, a primary focus of united states sanctions .
a year later, a bank rossiya subsidiary bought a controlling stake in ren tv, today the country’s eighth - largest broadcaster .
yury kovalchuk and putin turned their attention to bank rossiya in 1991, when its largest shareholder was still the leningrad communist party .
roldugin’s friendship with putin likely landed him in the exclusive club of bank rossiya shareholders. in 2010, a russian news service disclosed roldugin owned more than 3 percent of the bank .
market council, the organization that regulates the electricity market, confirmed the appointment of bank rossiya on monday. the bank was given the right to service payments because it proposed the most advantageous conditions for its payment services, a representative of the regulator said, adding that alfa bank will continue to service payments while bank rossiya builds up the technological wherewithal to take over .
on the eve of the merger, in june 2010, gep was a larger bank both in terms of assets and equity than bank rossiya according to the interfax rating of russian banks .
president vladimir v. putin has moved to prop up bank rossiya, owned by close friends, in the face of western sanctions .
the mossack fonseca files show that the communal principles that defined ozero continued with bank rossiya and its participants more than a decade later .
dmitry lebedev, 43, has more than 20 years of banking experience in russia. mr. lebedev has served as chairman of the management board of bank rossiya, a large russian national corporate bank, since 2006, and joined bank rossiya in 2004 as advisor to the chairman of the board of directors. bank rossiya has an indirect interest in telcrest investments limited (telcrest), which holds a 25. 2% stake in ctc media. mr. lebedev also serves on the board of directors of several affiliates of bank rossiya, including sogaz, the second largest insurance company in russia .
newly listed was cjsc abr management, an asset management firm closely linked to already - sanctioned rossiya bank, often called the personal bank of president vladimir putin and members of his closest circle .
one of bank rossiya’s holdings owns 25 percent stake in channel 1, a state - controlled tv network with the largest audience in russia .
lawyers for kovalchuk said information about bank rossiya was publicly available. “we do not understand why you address these questions to mr kovalchuk. ”
kovalchuk is part of a dacha cooperative with other members of this upmarket lakeside community, with several other members also major shareholders in bank rossiya .
the panama papers detail how a few suspicious deals involving bank rossiya’s shares helped a company linked to roldugin make a fortune in just two days .
bank rossiya considers the report an attack by both russian and foreign media and does not accept its authenticity, the vedomosti business newspaper reported tuesday .
mr. timchenko, the oil trader, entered the bank rossiya circle as an investor; according to the bank, his stake is owned by a company he controls. mr. warnig, the german banker, would later join bank rossiya’s board. (when mr. putin’s wife was badly injured in a car accident, mr. warnig’s bank arranged to pay for her medical care in germany. )
according to us treasury officials bank rossiya
is the personal bank for senior officials in the russian federation
and kovalchuk
is also the personal banker for senior officials... including putin
.
bank rossiya (f. k. a. aktsionerny bank russian federation), 2 liter a pl. rastrelli, saint petersburg 191124, russia; swift / bic rosy ru 2p; website www. urltoken; email address bank @ urltoken [ ukraine2 ] .
otkritie bank is a universal bank with diversified business structure and recognized by the cbr as a systemically important financial institution .
correction: an earlier version of this article incorrectly said that visa and mastercard resumed payment services for bank rossiya after blocking the bank on march 21. in fact, visa and mastercard did not resume services .
although gep’s contribution to the combined bank was more than half the equity and assets according to their financial statements, gep shareholders only got a bit more than 16 percent in the newly joined bank, according to bank rossiya’s 2010 international financial reporting standards (ifrs) report .
the reconstituted bank rossiya quickly became a favored city institution. at the mayor’s instruction, according to news reports, the city opened several large accounts there, fattening the bank’s coffers and setting it on its way .
novaya gazeta sought comment on this series of transactions from kovalchuk, bank rossiya’s largest shareholder, and alexei miller, the head of gazprom. neither responded .
after medvedev replaced putin as president, lesin left the government and joined the nation’s biggest private media group, gazprom - media, which bank rossiya managed .
as for bank rossiya, he went on: “as far as i recall, this is a medium - sized bank. personally, i did not have an account there, but i will definitely open one on monday. ” he later directed the presidential administration to begin depositing his official salary — roughly $ 7, 500 a month — into a bank rossiya account .
bank rossiya (f. k. a. aktsionerny bank russian federation), 2 liter a pl. rastrelli, saint petersburg 191124, russia; swift / bic rosy ru 2p; website www. urltoken; email address bank @ urltoken [ ukraine - eo13661 ]. - to - bank rossiya (a. k. a. ab rossiya, oao; f. k. a. aktsionerny bank russian federation; a. k. a. otkrytoe aktsionernoe obshchestvo aktsionerny bank rossiya), 2 liter a pl. rastrelli, saint petersburg 191124, russia; swift / bic rosy ru 2p; website www. urltoken; email address bank @ urltoken; registration id 1027800000084 (russia); tax id no. 7831000122 (russia); government gazette number 09804148 (russia) [ ukraine - eo13661 ] .
bank rossiya has confirmed the frozen accounts to rt. it has become hardest hit russian organization after it fell under us sanctions after crimea became part of russia. the frozen accounts of bank rossiya in the united states include $ 572 million which is about 10 percent of its 2013 assets, at today’s exchange rate .
in 2010, about one month after sandalwood sold the shares to horwich, bank rossiya took over gazenergoprombank (gep), owned by gazprom, a state company, through its subsidiaries. shareholders of bank rossiya ended up paying nothing for a bank which filled their coffers with billions of dollars and more than doubled their assets from us $ 3 billion to more than us $ 8 billion .
mikhail lesin was intimately involved in the efforts of putin and bank rossiya to control russian media. as putin’s first media minister, he oversaw the regime’s propaganda push. lesin’s government tenure paralleled the growth of the bank’s media empire .
bank rossiya, the russian bank best known for its close ties to top kremlin figures, is to be
frozen out of the dollar
, according to us officials, as part of the new wave of sanctions from washington .
such layers of secrecy surrounded the offshore deals that bank rossiya staff in st petersburg sent all their instructions to a confidential intermediary – a firm of swiss lawyers in zurich .
the bank has been well known for its substantial dealings with russian gas group gazprom. banking analysts at fitch ratings have noted in the past that bank rossiya relied heavily on a tiny handful of customers for about 60% of its funding, some of whom also act as customers and shareholders of the bank .
bank rossiya shares were priced at the time of the merger at us $ 1, 100making the share of gazprom gazoraspredelenie worth at least about us $ 330 million in 2010 .
gazprom - media was only part of the media conglomerate that bank rossiya built. its sprawl has earned the bank’s chairman, yury kovalchuk, the nickname the russian rupert murdoch. in 2005, bank rossiya bought a stake in a small television network, which putin then designated as a national broadcaster, greatly expanding its reach and profit. it also took over ren - tv, muting critical voices and investigations of the government .
either way, bank rossiya’s holdings would increase tenfold during mr. putin’s second term. critical to this remarkable growth was the bank’s ability to snap up assets, at knockdown prices, that had previously belonged to the state - owned energy company gazprom .
. while bank rossiya publicly owned 16 percent of video international, a roldugin offshore company created by the bank secretly held an additional 12. 5 percent stake, the files show. according to its 2014 bank account forms, the company, international media overseas, had annual income of about $ 10 million from its holdings .
the modifications satisfied mossack fonseca. the panamanians also took comfort from the fact that a swiss law firm, dietrich baumgartner & partners, helped process paperwork for the bank rossiya network .
the data implicates 12 current or former heads of state. the panama papers also detailed a trail of transactions that leads from bank rossiya — a russian bank on the eu and u. s. sanctions list — to various countries including switzerland and panama .
one of these loyalists is bank rossiya’s chairman and largest shareholder, yuri v. kovalchuk, a physicist by training, sometimes called the rupert murdoch of russia for his role as architect of the bank’s media interests. other bank rossiya shareholders include several of the country’s wealthiest men, the son of mr. putin’s cousin and even an old st. petersburg friend of his, a cellist who was formerly first chair at the fabled mariinsky theater .
to grasp how bank rossiya’s holdings extend around the globe — and how island tax havens and other tools of global finance may serve to obscure their true breadth — one place to visit is 13a karpathou street in nicosia. this is the registered address of med media network limited, a company listed in a corporate flow chart connecting bank rossiya to a company called video international .
bank rossiya featured prominently in earlier occrp stories that showed roldugin used offshores to conduct a series of highly suspicious transactions, many of which made no financial sense but left roldugin much wealthier .
he is the second largest shareholder in bank rossiya (with about 10 %). like mr kovalchuk, he is a long - time acquaintance of mr putin, the eu says .
a day after the bank appeared on the u. s.' s sanctions list, visa and mastercard abruptly stopped providing payment services for the bank .
reuters reported last year that igora was the site of the 2013 wedding between putin’s daughter tikhonova and kirill shamalov, son of the long - time putin friend and bank rossiya shareholder nikolay shamalov .
a lawyer for kovalchuk said information about bank rossiya was available from pubic sources, adding: “we do not understand why your decision was to address these questions to mr. yury kovalchuk. ”
the united states and european union have imposed sanctions on several russian and ukrainian individuals and washington has also sanctioned bank rossiya, owned by businessmen it regards as close to russian president vladimir putin .
however, during this time bank rossiya actually grew significantly. from 2010 until 2013, bank rossiya’s assets quadrupled, from us $ 3. 2 billion to us $ 12. 5 billion; its equity more than tripled from us $ 270 million to almost us $ 950 million; and its net profit grew almost 10 times, from us $ 17 million to us $ 155 million. with such robust grown, how the bank’s share value actually dropped is unclear .
in sanctioning bank rossiya, the obama administration would resurface the “cashier” allegation, though it offered no evidence that mr. putin has personally profited from the bank. mr. kovalchuk, who through a spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment, in the past has attributed his bank’s success not to any special treatment but to sound investment and business decisions .
the bank is headed by yuri kovalchuk. the us alleges he is the “personal banker” for many senior russian government officials including putin. the panama papers disclose that kovalchuk and bank rossiya achieved the transfer of at least $ 1bn to a specially created offshore entity called sandalwood continental .
in a matter of days, bank rossiya had received an enormous windfall, nearly all from different branches of the russian state, which was delivering a pointed message. in late march, the united states had made bank rossiya a primary target of sanctions, effectively ostracizing it from the global financial system. now the kremlin was pushing back, steering lucrative accounts its way to reduce the pain .
kovalchuk became majority shareholder and board chair of this new version of bank rossiya. when the u. s. government sanctioned him in 2014, it described kovalchuk as one of putin’s “cashiers. ”
on march 28, bank rossiya — the country' s 15th - largest bank with 421 billion rubles ($ 12 billion) in assets as of jan 1, according to rating agency ria rating — said it would cease all foreign currency operations and work only with the ruble .
otkritie is a full - service commercial bank benefiting from a diversified business structure. the bank focuses on corporate investment banking, retail business, smes and private banking .
in 2013, bank rossiya reported total assets of roughly $ 5. 6 billion (338 billion rubles) at today’s exchange rates. the frozen assets include accounts belonging to sobinbank, a wholly owned subsidiary .
rossiya 24 tv even accused some of them of trying to
capitalise
on the currency crisis
at any cost
, after they set up exchange rates much higher than those of the central bank .
the bank boss, now estimated by forbes to have a personal fortune of $ 1. 4bn according to forbes, helped transform the bank from a communist party - backed enterprise into a fast - growing and, above all, well - connected bank .
sberbank, the largest bank, saw a relatively modest reduction of 25 billion roubles .
the market regulator gave the bank the role in a board meeting on april 10, taking the job away from alfa bank, which has serviced the domestic electricity market since 2008, kommersant reported. the appointment will boost bank rossiya' s turnover by 10 percent and give it additional revenue of about 4 billion rubles ($ 112 million) annually from commission charges, analysts estimated .
with no advance notice or public debate, though, the board voted that day in april to shift that business to bank rossiya, a smaller institution that lacked the ability to immediately absorb the work. for bank rossiya, it was a tidy coup set to yield an estimated $ 100 million or more in annual commissions, yet it was hardly the only new business coming in. state corporations, local governments and even the black sea fleet in crimea were suddenly shifting their accounts to the bank, too .
bank rossiya, sanctioned by the u. s. last month for being the financier of the russian elite, has been granted the right to service payments on russia' s $ 36 billion wholesale electricity market .
bank rossiya, which reported less than $ 1 million in profits the year before mr. putin became president, had grown steadily, but figures like mr. kovalchuk and mr. timchenko remained in the shadows .
on june 23, 2010, sandalwood bought 66, 198 shares (about 3 percent of the share capital) of bank rossiya from evgeny malov. malov is another well - connected businessman from st. petersburg .
during his time out of the presidency, 2008 to 2012, bank rossiya’s balance sheet ballooned from under $ 4 billion to more than $ 8 billion. and the network of putin associates kicked into high gear .
© 2014 - 2018 public joint - stock company
bank otkritie financial corporation
. regulated by central bank of russian federation (general license # 2209 of 24 november 2014 )
abros was and remains on america’s sanctions list. so it is unclear why rossiya, also under sanctions, would want to distance itself from its former subsidiary. it could be that rossiya hoped that if abros were no longer a majority - owned subsidiary of the bank, it would be taken off the list. but this has not happened .
bank rossiya had already assumed management of the assets of gazprombank, one of russia’s largest. now, gazprombank purchased gazprom media group, which owns five television and several radio stations. the price: $ 166 million .
attempting to unwind video international’s convoluted corporate structure requires going back to 2011. that is when bank rossiya and a couple of partners purchased the company, according to an interview given by video international’s chief executive in 2013 .
an early deal involved one of the country’s biggest insurers, sogaz. bank rossiya bought a controlling stake in sogaz by acquiring shares that had been held by gazprom. the bank paid around $ 100 million, according to mr. nemtsov and mr. milov, who later valued sogaz at $ 2 billion .
the bank of russia transactions balance for liquidity supply / withdrawal of 09. 07. 2018
reuters has also learned that earlier this year katerina, 29, described herself as the “spouse” of kirill shamalov, son of nikolai shamalov, a longtime friend of the president. shamalov senior is a shareholder in bank rossiya, which u. s. officials have described as the personal bank of the russian elite .
loans from these rotenberg companies totaling more than $ 231 million appear to have gone to a british virgin islands - based company called sunbarn limited, created by a manager at bank rossiya. the loans had no repayment schedule .
bank rossiya, whose biggest shareholder is yury kovalchuk — a man who according to the u. s. state department is president vladimir putin' s
personal banker
— is under sanctions for its involvement in ukraine .
as well as leading the boardroom, kovalchuk is the largest shareholder in bank rossiya, owning close to 30% . outside banking, he also has interests in a number of federal television channels and a mobile network, tele2 .
the files make clear that bank rossiya built the network. its employees tended to it, working to create the offshore companies, assigning ownership to roldugin and others and shepherding the transactions through banks in russia, cyprus and switzerland .
vtb press office said the bank does not comment on its monthly accounting data, calling the local standards used to prepare it “unrepresentative” as they do not reflect all the bank’s foreign subsidiaries .
the council met at its office in moscow’s world trade center. a spokeswoman declined to discuss the vote, except to say that a quorum attended, explaining that she did not want to contribute to an “anti - russian” article. the decision to shift the business to bank rossiya, she said, was one of several routine actions taken during a regular meeting that day. in remarks published on the council’s website in may, its director, maksim s. bystrov, said bank rossiya had “brought us” a proposal with lower commissions than those charged by the previous bank, alfa. but he declined to provide details, and alfa bank declined to comment .
is the largest single shareholder of bank rossiya and is also the personal banker for senior officials of the russian federation including putin. kovalchuk is a close advisor to president putin and has been referred to as one of his “cashiers. ”
but additional analysis of the records by occrp and novaya gazeta show that offshore companies connected to sergey roldugin, one of putin’s oldest friends, profited obscenely in building the jewel of the financial empire of putin’s inner circle: bank rossiya .
centrist daily nezavisimaya gazeta argues that the central bank itself has undermined the credibility of the rouble .
bank rossiya is indicated by all western intelligence as the mega piggy bank of putin' s entourage. the documents revealed in panama papers have thrown a bit of light on the financial tricks used to divert the rivers of dollars in their pockets. a new investigation by the organized crime and corruption reporting project explains how it is possible .
until march 51% of sogaz belonged to bank rossiya via a wholly owned subsidiary, called abros. rossiya is russia’s 17th - largest bank, and its owners have links to mr putin. the remainder of the shares in sogaz were divided between gazprom, its subsidiaries and other figures close to the president. this included a stake held indirectly by gennady timchenko, a billionaire investor whom america assumes to be a member of mr putin’s inner circle (mr timchenko has denied this) .
the reason the kremlin rushed to prop up bank rossiya is the same reason that the united states, and later its european allies, placed it on the sanctions list: its privileged status as what the obama administration calls the “personal bank” of the putin inner circle. built and run by some of the president’s closest friends and colleagues from his early days in st. petersburg, bank rossiya is emblematic of the way mr. putin’s brand of crony capitalism has turned loyalists into billionaires whose influence over strategic sectors of the economy has in turn helped him maintain his iron - fisted grip on power .
eight of the 22 - member board of directors that elevated bank rossiya to the position of the market' s cashier are government officials appointed by the cabinet. the remaining 14 places are occupied by representatives of energy producers, buyers and infrastructure operators .
among those taking part in the new arrangement was ctc media, a company with several television channels that was partially owned by a subsidiary of bank rossiya. ctc continues to pay video international around $ 80 million a year — but as a consultant .
previously, a bank rossiya spokesman had told the newspaper kommersant that the deal was approved by shareholders based on “independent estimations of both lenders” by the global accounting firms pricewaterhousecoopers and deloitte cis, which weighed “all assets of each member of the merger. ”
many of the men linked to the network, including putin, share something else in common besides history. they are connected to the st. petersburg - based bank rossiya, which the u. s. government has identified as putin’s personal cashbox .
both bank rossiya and its principal shareholder, billionaire yury kovalchuk, were placed on the u. s.' sanctions list on march 20, two days after president vladimir putin announced that crimea would be annexed to russia from ukraine following a referendum branded illegitimate by western nations. bank rossiya was labeled
the personal bank for senior officials of the russian federation
by the u. s. treasury, while kovalchuk, a friend of putin' s since the 1990s with a fortune of $ 1. 1 billion, according to forbes, was described as one of putin' s
cashiers .
putin immediately seemed to make the bank' s survival a point of principle. all measures of support would be given, he said on march 21, while promising to open a account with the bank .
its operations are concentrated in the north - west of russia and around moscow, where it is active in a wide range of saving and loan operations, with clients in oil, gas and energy. bank rossiya controls large insurance groups sogas and sk transneft .
rcb’s maratheftis said the bank “was always in full compliance with the anti - money laundering regulatory framework. ”
the movement of funds by gazprombank, revealed in data published by the central bank, means that at the beginning of april its foreign currency on deposit at the central bank dwarfed those of other major russian banks .
remitter' s bank liivalaia 8, 15040 tallinn swift kood / bic: habaee2x reg. number: 10060701
the economic model for how members of putin’s circle have shared the profits from this network was also established back in st. petersburg. in the 1990s, putin and the bank rossiya owners created a cooperative for a gated community where they all had houses. the cooperative kept a bank account in common. each could put money in, and anyone could take it out .
at various times, bank rossiya shareholders have included nikolay shamalov (his son, kirill, is married to putin’s younger daughter katerina tikhonova); mikhail shelomov, a distant relative of the president; and roldugin, a celebrated cellist and godfather to putin’s oldest daughter .
monthly accounts available on the central bank website show that during march, gazprombank increased the foreign currency held at its correspondent account with the central bank from zero to 248 billion roubles ($ 6. 9 billion) .
as retaliation for the annexation of crimea and kremlin support for pro - russian separatists in eastern ukraine, authorities in both the us and european union (eu) imposed sanctions on individuals and companies from putin’s inner circle. one of the most important targets was bank rossiya .
in 2014, lesin resigned from gazprom - media. russian press reports blamed a conflict between him and bank rossiya’s kovalchuk. lesin relocated to america, where he allegedly owned millions of dollars in property, holdings that had raised the suspicions of u. s. authorities .
alfa - endo is funded by alfa bank, a large russian bank with subsidiaries in the united states, britain and cyprus. the largest shareholder is mikhail fridman, a billionaire with interests in banking, energy and telecoms. an official at the bank said: “alfa bank, and broadly speaking alfa group, act as financial sponsors for the project and that’s it … we are not aware who else is participating in the project otherwise. ”
it seemed to be a quintessential insider deal: the year before, yuri shamalov, son of the bank rossiya shareholder and ozero member, had been appointed chairman of gazfond. “shamalov jr. , as head of gazfond, sold shares in the company managing russia’s largest private pension fund at a fantastically low price to the bank owned by his father, ” mr. nemtsov asserted .
bm bank public joint stock company (f. k. a. bm bank llc; a. k. a. bmbank jsc; a. k. a. publichnoye joint - stock company' bm bank'; a. k. a .
llc bm bank
), 37 / 122 t. shevchenko bld, kyiv 01032, ukraine; swift / bic bmlt ua uk; website urltoken; email address bank @ urltoken; executive order 13662 directive determination - subject to directive 1; all offices worldwide; for more information on directives, please visit the following link: urltoken [ ukraine - eo13662 ] (linked to: bank of moscow) .
the deal between malov and sandalwood was very lucrative for sandalwood, which bought shares from malov for 200 rubles per share (us $ 6. 50), spending a total of 13 million rubles (about us $ 425, 000) for the stake in bank rossiya .
the bank issued a statement saying that it “considers it inappropriate to provide comments on such groundless speculation, ” but said it is not the first time the bank has been the object of “unsubstantiated information attacks, ” vedomosti reported .
other companies are lining up behind bank rossiya, hoping for bailouts. the government recently announced that it would pump $ 6. 6 billion into two state - controlled banks whose access to foreign capital has been cut. and mr. sechin’s rosneft has requested a $ 42 billion loan .
the schemes are complex. the financial ploys are dark and convoluted. companies are owned by figurehead. but the occrp, the international network of investigative journalists specializing in crime and corruption in the countries of eastern europe, has joined all the dots scattered by years of journalistic investigations, investigations of the spanish judiciary and the revelations contained in the panama papers. and it came out a pretty clear picture of how putin’s aides have turned bank rossiya into a huge reservoir of wealth. at the expense of russian citizens. the us treasury department does not hesitate to define bank rossiya
the personal bank for senior officials of the russian federation. bank rossiya’s shareholders include members of putin’s inner circle associated with the ozero dacha cooperative, a housing community in which they live
. at various times, bank rossiya shareholders have included nikolay shamalov, putin’s son - in - law’s father, mikhail shelomov, a distant relative of the president, and the famous cellist sergei roldugin, putin’s longtime friend and star of panama papers. the bank was founded in 1990 in st. petersburg by some members of the communist party. after the collapse of the soviet union investors like yuri kovalchuk, vladimir yakunin and andrei frusenko, all putin’s friends, joined. in the mid - 90s st. petersburg criminal gangs entered the business, as the spanish investigators have discovered after ten years investigating gennady petrov and the tambovskaya gang. but with the rise to power of putin, things changed. today bank rossiya is one of the largest russian banks, with an assets of us $ 9 billion, and controls large slices of the national economy, including pieces of public money, such as gazprom’s pension fund. how was it possible ?
maratheftis said the bank was legally precluded from answering questions about “third parties, ” but it has always acted in “a transparent manner. ” he said the bank has forwarded icij’s questions to legal authorities in cyprus for an “independent investigation. ”
by 2008, mr. putin’s second term was ending and the bank rossiya media empire provided a supportive voice when, rather than recede from politics, he decided to serve as prime minister. mr. medvedev was elected president, while mr. putin largely retained control over the levers of government .
the bank rossiya manager shepherding the transaction wanted mossack fonseca’s panamanian directors to sign the horwich trading loan agreement on behalf of sandalwood quickly. one of the mossack fonseca partners suggested that they get a letter indemnifying the law firm first, possibly to avoid being held responsible for the any looting of rcb .
woven deeply into the putin system is bank rossiya. founded as the tiniest of banks in the twilight of the soviet era, bank rossiya, through staggering, stealthy expansion backed by the largess of the state, now has nearly $ 11 billion in assets. it controls a vast financial empire with tentacles across the economy, including a large stake in the country’s most powerful private media conglomerate, a key instrument of the kremlin’s power to shape public opinion. how well the bank survives in a time of sanctions may ultimately be a barometer of whether economic pressure is enough to make mr. putin stand down at a time when neighboring countries, especially in the baltics, are increasingly anxious about a newly aggressive russia .
reporters for novaya gazeta / occrp showed these documents to three independent banking and financial analysts and all of them said the merger hurt the state - owned companies which controlled gep. none of the experts agreed to talk on the record, since, as one said, “you understand who is behind bank rossiya. ” according to their calculations, gep’s shareholders should have received no less than 50 percent of the merged bank .
the business daily rbk agrees that
apparent panic
at the central bank has
stimulated panic on the market
.
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but whether bank rossiya retains a majority stake in video international is impossible to ascertain. records show that, on paper at least, its shares, held by a subsidiary, are down to 15 percent. nearly all the rest of the shareholders are buried behind fronts like med media of karpathou street .
mr. putin’s efforts to protect the bank were not just symbolic. he ordered the central bank to provide assistance if needed. state - owned energy companies transferred accounts to bank rossiya, and the governors of st. petersburg and the surrounding leningrad region told state institutions in their jurisdictions to do the same, according to russian news reports. additionally, in the lower house of parliament, the main party loyal to mr. putin provided the margin needed to rescind the law effectively limiting video international to just 35 percent of the advertising - placement market .
under these new rules, sogaz should have been subject to sanctions because of its links to both bank rossiya and kordeks, a 12. 5% shareholder reportedly controlled by mr timchenko, whom america had blacklisted several months earlier. (mr timchenko declined to comment on this or any other details of his affairs .) however, in another exquisitely timed transaction, rossiya cut its stake again—according to the paperwork, two days before the ofac changes were announced—thus helping sogaz avoid sanctions once more .
the bank is described by the us treasury department as “the personal bank for senior officials of the russian federation” whose “shareholders include members of putin’s inner circle associated with the ozero dacha cooperative, a housing community in which they live [ d ] ” .
only one russian bank has so far been targeted by u. s. sanctions, but some u. s. senators have recently called for sanctions against both state gas producer gazprom, the bank’s founder and minority shareholder, and other major banks .
the bank had its biggest $ 435, 433, 344 asset placed on a single us account with a financial company called computershare inc. some tens of millions of dollars were frozen in the accounts of raiffeisen bank, according to the us treasury .
in 2005, a subsidiary of bank rossiya bought a stake in channel 5, a local television network owned by the st. petersburg government. the price was $ 25 million. there was no competition. channel 5’s value swelled in 2006, when regulators let it acquire frequencies in 30 regions across russia .
in 2010, bank rossiya put its hands on the majority state owned russian energy jewel, gazprom. the subsidiary of the gas giant, gazenergoprombank, was at that time a public bank with equity of us $ 343 million, while bank rossiya reached a more modest us $ 270 million. the two banks decided to merge but, as we might have expected a fair distribution of the shares, the shareholders of gazenergoprombank only received 16% of the new bank rossiya, whose owners instead managed to double their assets for nothing. this was possible because in rossiya’s annual report despite its low assets and equity it was estimated five times the market price of gazenergoprombank. but, at occrp say, if the real value of bank rossiya was really that, or about us $ 3. 3 billion, how is it possible that a 12% share in 2013 was sold for us $ 153 million when the correct price should havebeen at least us $ 340 million? this is not the only case in which the bank rossiya owners did a roaring trade in the russian taxpayers’ expense. in 2010 the offshore company sandalwood, registered in the british virgin islands and owned by sergei roldugin, the cellist of miracles, bought 3% of bank rossyia at us $ 6. 50 a share. two days later, he resold the whole stake to the horwich trading of cyprus at $ 211. 5 per share, and the latter company resold it all a month later to gazprom at us $ 1, 120 a share. something like 172 times the price paid by roldugin. and, even worse, gazprom has then resold the stake at half of the price paid, obtaining a big loss of taxpayers’ money. roldugin has always defended himself by saying he do not have a penny .
even my cello is second - hand ,
he said on several occasions. one would be curious to know how much he paid for it and at what price he will resell it .
but in its 2013 report, gazprom’s subsidiary reported selling their bank rossiya’s shares for much less than half that price or us $ 153 million (in exchange rates for december 2013). at 2010 exchange rates, the price would be about us $ 170 million, or half what they had paid in 2010 .
secretary mnuchin leads u. s. delegation to g - 20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in buenos aires, argentina
the us explained the freezing of the bank assets on its blacklisted owner yuri kovalchuk who is part of the kremlin inner circle. on april 28, 2014, smp bank and sobinbank, which belong to the rotenberg brothers, were hit by similar sanctions .
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the owner on paper of sandalwood was oleg gordin, a small businessman with a background in “law enforcement agencies, ” according to an rcb bank account opening form found in the files. gordin also had power of attorney on some of roldugin’s company bank accounts .
angelo codignoni has served as a member of the board of directors since june 2011. mr. codignoni has 30 years of experience in the television, media and advertising industries, which has included the creation and management of television networks in europe and asia. dmitry lebedev has served as chairman of the management board of bank rossiya, a large russian national corporate bank, since 2006, and has more than 20 years of banking experience. bank rossiya has an indirect interest in telcrest investments limited, which holds a 25. 2% stake in ctc media. mr. codignoni and mr. lebedev are representatives of telcrest and their appointments have been made in accordance with the stockholders agreement between ctc media, mtg russia and telcrest that came into force on june 2, 2011 .
records show that the ownership of one powerful television advertising company linked to bank rossiya, for example, is buried in offshore companies in panama, in the british virgin islands and even at a simple concrete house on karpathou street in nicosia, the capital of cyprus, whose owner had no idea of the company registered there .
in september 2009, a mossack fonseca compliance officer flagged a transaction for $ 103 million involving a company called sandalwood continental limited. the manager for bank rossiya who was arranging the transaction wanted sandalwood corporate directors – who were stand - ins provided by the law firm – to approve the deal. but its size seemed worrisome .
moscow, april 24 (reuters) - russia’s third biggest bank moved almost $ 7 billion to the central bank as tension over ukraine rose in march and joined others in slashing its deposits in foreign banks where they could be frozen if more international sanctions are imposed .
“this could show that gazprombank was using the foreign currency correspondent account at the central bank as a sort of haven from sanctions. ”
the us has frozen accounts of russian banks smp, rossiya and its subsidiary sobinbank worth in total $ 640 million, as part of america’s escalating sanctions war against russia over its policy in ukraine .
a russian company called ozon holds title to the ski resort. bank rossiya’s kovalchuk is a co - owner of ozon. beginning in late 2009, ozon received $ 11. 3 million worth of loans from a key offshore company in the putin network, the mossack fonseca files show. the loans carried an interest rate of 1 percent .
now, the mossack fonseca files reveal that there was a secret component to both lesin and bank rossiya’s media dealings. lesin had a company called gloria market ltd. based in the british virgin islands. he created it in 2011, to collect money from advertising, according to a source of funds form found in the mossack fonseca files .
this represented the bulk of the $ 8 billion that russian banks added to such central bank accounts as a whole, raiffeisenbank analysts calculated .
today bank rossiya is among the top 20 russian lenders according to the interfax rating agency, with assets of about us $ 9 billion and equity of us $ 700 million. it controls a sprawling financial empire with important strategic assets that underpin the russian economy, including one of the country’s largest insurers and the management company for gazprom’s pension fund.
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 in saint petersburg . 
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 in saint petersburg.
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 in saint petersburg.