RIA NOVOSTI. Nomos-Bank has sold 24.9% of Bank Petrovsky, which is being merged with Bank Otkritie, Nomos-Bank said in a press release quoted by RIA Novosti.
Nomos-Bank no longer holds Bank Petrovsky shares. The date on which the shareholding structure changed is August 2, 2010. Information about the new holder of the shares was not provided.
Bank Otkritie, Otkritie Investment Bank and Bank Petrovsky, based in Saint Petersburg, are expected to merge by October 1, while Bank Gubernsky, headquartered in Ekaterinburg, will be taken over in 2011. Bank Otkritie will become a Top 30 lender in Russia after the merger. The combined bank’s shareholders should include the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA, with a stake of around 25%, according to some data, or up to 15%, as other sources say) and International Finance Corporation (IFC) with a 15% interest.
Bank Petrovsky’s former name is Bank EEFC (Saint Petersburg). Bank EEFC, the group’s head bank and a large lender in the North-Western Federal District, was caught in a bind during the crisis because of sizeable investments in the real estate sector and funds lent to the business owner, who provided no collaterals. The state represented by the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) acted as a rehabilitator. Later the agency shared this duty with two more companies: Nomos-Bank and Bank Otkritie. This February Nomos-Bank pulled out of the rehabilitation project, seeing no prospects for mutual development of its Saint Petersburg branch and Bank Petrovsky.
