Alfa Bank group might acquire UniCredit's Ukrsotsbank for stake in ABH Holdings
MOSCOW. Aug 10 (Interfax) - ABH Holdings S.A. and Italy's UniCredit Group have signed a memorandum of understanding concerning negotiations on the possible sale of UniCredit's Ukrainian subsidiary Ukrsotsbank in exchange for a minority stake in ABH Holdings S.A., Russia's Alfa Bank said in a statement.
The banking groups have signed an exclusive three-month agreement. If they reach a deal, UniCredit could become a minority shareholder of ABH Holdings alongside private individual shareholders.
ABH Holdings S.A. (ABHH) is a private Luxembourg-based holding company with investments in a number of banking groups in the CIS and Europe. It includes Alfa Bank (Russia), Alfa Bank (Ukraine), Alfa Bank (Belarus), Alfa Bank (Kazakhstan) and Amsterdam Trade Bank N.V. (Netherlands).
The statement did not say which stake in ABHH UniCredit may receive. "We welcome a new potential shareholder," Alfa-Bank cited its main beneficiary, Mikhail Fridman, as saying.
According to the report of Alfa Group, in total, the banks of ABHH have about 1,000 branches, the size of assets to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) at the start of 2015 amounted to $47.2 billion.
According to Alfa Bank, the beneficiaries of ABHH are Fridman with 36.47%, German Khan with 23.27%, Alexei Kuzmichev with 18.12%, Pyotr Aven with 13.76%, Andrei Kosogov with 4.08% and The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research with 4.3%.
"This proposed deal is simultaneously tactical and strategic. Thanks to it, ABHH, our investment holding company headquartered in Luxembourg, will become an unrivaled player on the Ukrainian market, and global Italian banking group UniCredit will become a shareholder of ABHH," ABHH chief Petr Aven was cited as saying in the statement of Ukraine's Alfa-Bank.
UniCredit Group put Ukrsotsbank for sale for the first time already in 2013, but then postponed these plans. In April of this year, Graziano Cameli, who at the time was CEO of the financial establishment, said that UniCredit Group is planning to remain on the Ukrainian market. "We are searching for conditions in order to stay. Formally we are remaining accessible for sales, but this is only technically," the banker said then.
However, the head of the supervisory board of Bank Austria, which unites the East European assets of UniCredit, Willibald Cernko, said recently that the group is expecting to sell its subsidiary bank in Ukraine before the end of this year.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine, on July 1, 2015, Ukrsotsbank was the seventh largest bank by assets (45.367 billion hryvnia), Alfa-Bank was the eigth largest (40.282 billion hryvnia) among the 127 operating financial institutions.
In 2012 Pamplona Global Financial Institutions Fund, which is managed by Pamplona Capital Management (which invests funds of the owners of Alfa Group) became the second largest shareholder of UniCredit, having consolidated 5% of the group after an SPO. The shares that were bought at the lowest point of UniCredit's market capitalization were sold after double growth. "Alfa Group and UniCredit remain satisfied with the result and now are ready to strengthen cooperation," Alfa Bank said in a tatement.