Russia approves sale of Goldman Sachs subsidiary bank

MOSCOW. Jan 31 (Interfax) - The Russian authorities have allowed a change in the ownership of the subsidiary bank of U.S. Goldman Sachs Group , and CJSC Balchug Capital may now acquire 100% of the shares in Goldman Sachs Bank LLC as per the order signed by President Vladimir Putin on January 31.

The document does not contain any other identifiers of the purchasing company, except for the name. A CJSC with the same name and controlled by the Balchug Capital fund of Armenian businessman David Amaryan was previously involved in a number of deals to buy out assets of foreign players leaving the Russian market, particularly Caterpillar .

Goldman Sachs Bank has been operating in Russia since January 2009. The bank specialized in servicing Goldman Sachs corporate clients and does not work with individuals. The bank ranked 230th in terms of assets among Russian banks in the Interfax-100 ranking prepared by the Interfax Center for Economic Analysis in 9M 2024.

Goldman Sachs announced its intention to leave Russia almost immediately in March 2022 after the start of the conflict in Ukraine. Goldman Sachs Bank the same year was included in the list of lending institutions for which a ban on transactions with shares and stocks, as well as contributions to authorized capital, has been established, unless special permission for these transactions has been obtained.