VEDOMOSTI. In the near future UniCredit Group will close its Russian investment banking unit, UniCredit Securities, a manager at an investment company, the company’s employee and a source close to UniCredit Group told Vedomosti business daily. A final decision on how the unit will be closed has yet to be adopted, but there is a likelihood that the unit’s closing will be complete, including the refusal from licenses, the newspaper’s respondent said. The group’s representative left a request unanswered.
For the record, UniCredit Securities was purchased by the group amid great expectations from investment banking activities and these expectations were reasonable, but currently these expectations are different, Vedomosti’s respondent said. There is strong monopolization of this segment on the part of state-run banks, the source noted. For this reason, the importance of investment banking in UniCredit’s operations in Russia will be falling, with some of these functions to be carried out by the bank, as it will be simpler to provide these services to the big accounts, while UniCredit Securities will focus on brokerage services.
As the newspaper wrote, in late 2006 Aton’s major shareholder Evgeny Yuriev, Alexander Kandel and other partners sold the company’s investment assets to Italian group UniCredit for $424 mln. The company was named UniCredit Securities. Yuriev retained online broker Aton and management company Aton-Management.
At the beginning of last August Bank Austria, which is part of UniCredit, wrote down goodwill for €50 mln from the acquisition of UniCredit Securities, after it revised the latter’s ability to generate profit. Meanwhile, the company’s indicators were not disclosed.
