VTB considers creation of united NPF with funds owned by Mints, Avdeev
MOSCOW. June 14 (Interfax) - VTB is appraising Roman Avdeev's nongovernmental pension funds (NPF) and Boris Mints' Budushcheye financial group for a potential merger of those assets with VTB's own pension fund.
VTB has hired KPMG to prepare a market valuation of its own fund, Avdeev's NPF Soglasie and NPF OPK, and Budushcheye's NPF Budushcheye, NPF Telecom-Soyuz, NPF Obrazovanie and NPF Sotsialnoye Razvitie. KPMG will receive 11 million rubles for the work, according to VTB documents.
They indicate that the results can be used "in making management decisions in acquisition by the bank of stakes in a unified NPF (uniting all items being appraised) and for preparing VTB accounts under IFRS." The valuation will cover the period January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2016.
Budushecheye was created in 2016 to merge the management structure of the NPFs in Mints' O1 Group. Those NPFs had 296.9 billion rubles in pension accumulations and 31.5 billion rubles in pension reserves under management as of the end of Q1 2017. Budushcheye shares are traded on the Moscow Exchange .
NPF Soglasie manages 71.7 billion rubles in pension accumulations and NPF OPK manages over 1 billion rubles.
NPF VTB Pension Fund has 135.9 billion rubles of pension accumulations and 2.5 billion rubles of pension reserves under management.
Market participants said they were unaware of VTB's merger plans.
A spokesman for O1 Group and Avdeev's Rossium declined to comment. A VTB spokesman said the valuation was being performed "for analysis of future client servicing opportunities," but did not elaborate.
It is not the first big merger of pension funds on the Russian market. Earlier this year, three pension funds controlled by Anatoly Gavrilenko (KIT Finance, Promagrofund and Nasledie) completed a merger with NPF Gazfond Pension Accumulations, which was formed in 2014 and received the rights and obligations relating to NPF Gazfond's mandatory pension insurance. Gavrilenko has a 65% stake in the post-merger company and NPF Gazfond has 35%.
