Sovcombank to merge Vitabank

MOSCOW. Jan 13 (Interfax) - Sovcombank , one of Russia's largest lenders, plans to merge with Vitabank, materials for a shareholder meeting indicated.

The issue of Sovcombank's restructuring will be considered by its shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting that will be held in absentia on February 13, 2026.

Former Sovcombank deputy CEO Kirill Sokolov acquired 54% of Vitabank in February 2022 and Sovcombank itself acquired a 31% stake. The goal of the purchase was to use Vitabank's license to create various payment services with Sovcombank's Best2pay platform.

However, a few days after the announcement of Vitabank's new ownership structure, on February 24, 2022, Sovcombank and its subsidiaries, including Best2pay, were hit by U.S. sanctions. Sovcombank divested its stake in Vitabank and it went to Sokolov, increasing his interest to 85%. But in March 2022 this stake was transferred to another former Sovcombank senior executive, Oleg Yarmushevich, who made several offers to buy out minority shareholders.

The results of the last one, which could have made Yarmushevich Vitabank's sole owner, were not disclosed. Vitabank, which was hit by U.S. blocking sanctions in November 2024, also does not publish information about its current ownership structure.

Vitabank was founded in the latter days of the Soviet Union, in 1990, by Leningrad government agencies and local food companies. By the early 2000s, the bank's principal shareholder was businessman Alexander Aladushkin's St. Petersburg Flour Mill.

Sovcombank has been fairly active in mergers and acquisitions, buying up banks as well as other financial companies, such as investment firms and insurers. The bank was Russia's ninth largest by assets, with 4.3 trillion rubles, at the end of the third quarter of 2025, according to the Interfax-100 ranking.

Vitabank ranked 170th with 11.4 billion rubles in assets.