Financial group Safmar (former B&N Group) which manages the assets held by the Gutseriev – Shishkhanov families has launched the merger of its non-banking financial assets on the basis of Europlan, Safmar shareholder and B&N Bank CEO Mikail Shishkhanov told RBC. According to him, the merged company will focus on three main areas of business (pension, leasing and insurance). B&N Bank's banking group remains beyond the deal.
"To pay for the technical issue we plan to contribute our VSK shares, and also a 100% stake in Safmar to Europlan PJSC. As a result, we plan to set up a public company worth over Rub 60 bln and a rating of at least BB-. There is no such financial company in the Russian market," Shishkhanov said in an interview to RBC.
Leasing firm Europlan was founded in 1999. The company was acquiredin July 2015 by concerns controlled by Mikail Shishkhanov and Mikhail Gutseriev from investment funds Baring Vostok and Capital International. After the IPO held on December 2015 a 51% stake in the company is controlled by Еuroplan Holdings Ltd (Cyprus) whose beneficial owner is Mikail Shishkhanov. Based on SPARK data, a 15.5% stake in the leasing firm is controlled by B&N Group's funds (private pension fund Doverie and private pension fund European Pension Fund). Furthermore, financial group Safmar also holds an interest (24.99%) in the leasing firm.
Insurer VSK is owned by Sergey Tsikalyuk (51%), a 45% stake in the company was bought in May 2016 by financial group Safmar, paying the deal using B&N Insurance assets. According to Mikail Shishkhanov, Safmar holds an option to buy another 4% interest in VSK.
Private pension fund Safmar was established on the basis of three pension funds that Mikail Shishkhanov controls (European Pension Fund, Regionfund and Obrazovanie I nauka. Pension assets that Safmar manages total Rub 185.6 bln, including 177.3 bln of pension accruals.
Mikail Shishkhanov did not rule out that in order to raise capitalization Europlan could place additional shares on the Moscow Exchange before end 2016. However, even after Europlan's additional stock offering Safmar Group will remain its majority shareholder, he emphasized.
"We expect to wrap up the main part of the deal before 2017. The deal is arranged by VTB Capital," Mikail Shishkhanov added.
